How deep is the sea

From the Monastery of Chrisoskalitissa to Hora Sfakion along the E4 trail

The most beautiful pages of our adventure on earth always come unexpectedly.

Photos and Text by Jacob Balzani Lööv

The most beautiful pages of our adventure on Earth always arrive unexpectedly. So I found myself walking in Crete, Erika and I, on this patch of sand, the blinding, absurd Libyan Sea touching our toes. A kaleidoscope of the Mediterranean, how many stories and images can one island hold? Just this word is enough to make my mind wander. We know nothing of this place; I've forgotten the history I studied, only to rediscover it here in the toil of my steps and behind every horizon. I've avoided reading any guidebook; it's all here, if only we have the patience and love to interpret its signs.
I'm a mountain man, and it never occurred to me that you could even walk near water, especially salt water. I thought the sea was made only for sailing. I see a small boat approaching, full of little colorful boxes. Are they for bees? Sea bees? Bees on vacation? In the Heraklion Archaeological Museum, there's a gold pendant with two bees gazing at each other. Acrobatic beekeepers and bull-leapers, children of Minos and a civilization that at some point disappeared, and no one knows exactly why. But the bee fishermen have never stopped returning to land with a haul of thyme honey.

Do mountains fall into the sea?

We want to hike part of the E4 trail. It's not a particularly poetic name, but it's the longest trail in Europe, almost ten thousand kilometers. As if superlatives mattered. And it's the high mountains plunging into the Libyan Sea that draw me to the southwest part of the island, an important detail for those arriving from the mainland who don't want to risk seasickness.

We immediately lose ourselves in the tangy Mediterranean scrub, and only a rise leads us back: we spot the pink-tinged beach of Elafonissi, teeming with tiny human beings. We pass by cedar trees and beaches where nudity is the norm. Votive chapels appear every now and then, like in our Alps, only here they resemble shipwrecks. They are miniature churches, perched on the rocks and painted white and blue. On the beach, we find a litter of amphora shards, and it takes me a moment to realize that the stone I'm sitting on was an ancient sea-encrusted column. It's always the sunsets that lead us to unexpected treasures. Is it the time of day that makes a place magical, or is it simply because we were predestined to be there? In a roadstead in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of stone houses lie abandoned. Where have they gone? Lissos must have been bustling with life two thousand years ago when offerings were brought to the god Asclepius, who almost ruined Hades with his obsession with healing mortals. We take care not to disturb his snakes and fall asleep, exhausted but happy.

At night, at the seaside, you sweat.

Jacob Balzani Lööv

Jacob Balzani Lööv is an Italian-Swedish photographer obsessed with stories of people intimately connected to a specific place. Although passionate about the outdoors, Jacob’s main focus is documentary photography, a practice that takes him into different environments—not only natural ones, but also often into those theatres of conflict where human events of global significance are unfolding.

Shepherds, sheep and Cyclopes

The next day, when a small valley opens onto Soughia, we're drawn back to the mountains and spend the day climbing the Aghia Irini gorge, only to find ourselves in a landscape of sheep and shepherds. Perhaps, just as I imagine it, it's here inland that the Cyclopes are hiding.

At Omalos, the plateau, I feel almost at home among these mountains, where I can already see the signs of autumn in a few drifts of leaves blown by the wind. Continuing up, I leave Erika to eat chestnuts and enjoy the sun with the friendly keepers of the Kallergi refuge, and, obsessed with altitude, I reach Melintaou, from where I admire the lunar, limestone landscape of the White Mountains. Two hunters are quickly chasing some rare goats, which the Cretans call Kri Kri. When I return, it's night; the full moon is already high, illuminating the gorge we'll descend the next day. The sea breathes 1,500 meters below, and for the first time, I'm cold.

At the center of the gorge, among ancient olive trees, lie the remains of a village that was only abandoned in 1962. What safer place could there be among the steep slopes? Indeed, these are places of resistance and refuge from the numerous invaders of the island, which after the glories of the Minoans was mostly a colony. Venice occupied Crete for 462 years. At the end of the 17th century, Heraklion, then Candia, was besieged for twenty-one years by the Turks. Throughout Europe, this despicable siege was talked about, which they were supposed to end against the infidels. But once the enthusiasm of the Crusades faded, without a true common front, words remained just words, and ultimately the island became part of the Ottoman Empire, a position it remained until its end.

How deep is the sea

Everyone knows Dalla's song "How Deep the Sea," (Italian song "Com'è profondo il mare" by Italian songwriter Lucio Dalla. -Ed ) but on the white roof of a small church, unreachable except through hard work, just as the blue water becomes indistinguishable from the sky, that music resonates with all my soul. It tells the story of humanity, beginning with the fish from which we all descend: it's a journey filled with drama and inequality, but it's the lulling presence of the sea, which, like thought, cannot be fenced off or blocked, that restores our serenity. Venus stands there, motionless, and all around is now primordial black.

Untamed by the wild camping of Aghia Roumeli, it's in the final days of our journey that we complete our transformation. Along the way, we've stripped ourselves of everything nonessential. Between the arid earth and the salty air, there's only us and our bodies left to care for. Everything is very simple here in the warmth, where few clothes, few gestures, and plenty of water suffice. On our last night in Loutro, after an aperitif of feta, tomato, and white wine, we ring the bell of a church among the rocks for the last time. No roads reach here. We sleep under the stars, inside the ruins of a castle overlooking the port. Just before falling asleep, a phrase I must have read in Moby Dick about a faraway island comes to mind: "It's not marked on any map; real places never are." A shooting star falls. I dream.

Itinerary

From the monastery of Chrisoskalitissa to Hora Sfakion along the E4 trail. The route from Soughia to Agia Roumeli was done both up the Agia Irini gorge and down the Samaria gorge, and along the coast (all villages are connected by one or more daily ferries). A description can be found here (stages 5-14). There are daily supply stops and guesthouses along the route, with the exception of the coastal section between Soughia and Agia Roumeli (very long and demanding to do in a day). Recommended time: year-round except summer.

Our footwear

I chose the Rocket DFS GTX because they're comfortable and versatile. I wanted a pair of shoes that weren't too heavy and would give me confidence both on the rocks by the sea and at 2,000 meters above sea level. The entire route, which we completed in nine days, is 140 km long with 6,000 m of elevation gain.