Across Crete
Part 1 :From Khania to Herakleion
By Johan de Bakker. With photographs by Yannis Samatas, Erno Verhoeven, Jean Bienvenu and Anemone Horn.
PRICE £15.95 (UK postage £2.00, EC postage £4.00, ROW Surface Mail £4.00, Air Mail £6.00)
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A superb book (first part of a trilogy, which will include "Western Crete" and "Eastern Crete") compiled by Johan de Bakker with photographs by the webmasters of "Explore Crete", "Sphakia Crete", "Western Crete", and Anemone Horn.
Each one of the nine chapters within receive a synopsis of the area they deal with, geographically and historically, before extracts from travel writers Richard Pococke (1739), Robert Pashley (1834) Edward Lear (1864) and Captain Thomas Spratt (1853) are interwoven, giving the reader an idea of what it was like travelling the "megali Nissi" in the days before mass tourism.
The final 3 chapters of miscellany include extracts of the poets Homer, Hesiod, Callimachus and Ovid with a last chapter on the Atlantis link - namely the eruption of Santorini (Thera) in the 16th century BC, as described 1200 years later by Plato in the Timaeus and Critias dialogues.
Of the 4 authors that Johan de Bakker has used extracts of, only Edward Lear's "Cretan Journal" is currently in print (though Spratt was reprinted by Adolf Haakert in the 80's and Pashley was reproduced in a 2 vol pb format in Greece 15 years ago) and the price of the originals can run into £1,000s, so this is a very welcome series from that perspective too.
Absolutely superb.
SJ
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Khania (Chania)
Chapter 2: Between Khania and Yeoryioupoli (Georgioupolis)
Chapter 3: Between Yeoryioupoli and Rethymnon
Chapter 4: Between Frankokastello and Ayia Galini
Chapter 5: Rethymnon
Chapter 6: The Amari Valley
Chapter 7: East of Rethymnon
Chapter 8: Herakleion
Chapter 9: Knossos and Arkhanes (Archanes)
Miscellanea:
Part I The Time of Gods
Part II: The Time of Heroes
Part III: The Downfall: Atlantis