Neo Horio, Crete 1998

In the Easter holidays, i.e. the first 2 weeks of April, 1998 Bill, Rory, Jens Peter and I spent 2 super weeks on Crete.

On this trip we decided to see the western half of Crete and to try to discover the real island, away from the big tourist centres. So we rented a house in the small village of Neo Horia (New Town), south of Chania, in the foothills of the White Mountains. We were the only tourists in the village, the economy of which is based on farming olives and oranges. The house was a 200-year old, traditional Cretan house which had been beautifully renovated by the owners, Mrs. Fenareti and her husband. They are now doing the booking themselves but we booked through a British company, Pure Crete, which helps the local people to renovate old houses as holiday homes and encourages and supports conservation programmes on Crete.

Neo Horeo and White Mountains

Neo Horio (town on left) and the White Mountains. Neo Horio means new town. It has 2 churches and a chapel, a school, a grocery store, bakery, restaurant and coffee house.

Olive groves belonging to Neo Horio. Bill and hiked through the village olive groves and orange orchards, photographing wildflowers.

Neo Horio and olive grove
olive trees

Olive trees. Most of the people living in Neo Horio are farmers. The main crops are olives and oranges.

Orange orchard

Orange trees
Oranges and blossoms

Oranges - ripe fruit and blossoms at the same time

Orange blossom. The perfume is heavenly, especially in the evening.

Orange blossom
Fenareti's House Fenareti's house which was our home for 2 weeks. The house is at least 200 years old. It stood derelict for many years until Mrs. Fenateti and her husband, encouraged by Pure Crete, renovated it as a holiday home. When we were there, they often brought us oranges and grapefruit from their orchards and homemade wine - delicious.

The right end of the house. The roof of Rory and Jens' bedroom is the terrace of the house in the street above ours.

Fenareti's House
Rory and Jens looking out door

Jens and Rory looking out the door of their bedroom.

The lemon tree in our garden. We also had an orange tree, a grape vine over the terrace, and lots of flowers.

lemon tree
Fenareti's sitting room and fireplace

The sitting room with fireplace. The doorway leads down to the main bedroom. The cover on our bed was woven by Mrs. Fenareti's grandmother over 100 years ago. We enjoyed having a fire in the fireplace evenings.

The stone sofas in the sitting room were the beds in the original house.

Fenareti's sitting room - sofas
Fenareti's kitchen

The kitchen with all mod cons.

The church in Stilos, the next town west of Neo Horio. The church in Neo Horio was not as pretty but had several bells which we enjoyed hearing - the ringers sometimes played hymns.

Stilos church
Mehari

Maheri. We hiked up through the pass and on to Rimni

Rimni and the White Mountains. Along the way, we saw them dumping truck-loads of oranges down the mountainside - they were too big by EG standards. They were navel oranges and could not be used for juice. The whole mountain smelled of orange juice.

Ramni
Path to Paidhori

Another day we walked to Paidhori. This is a view of the White Mountains along the way. The path was lined with flowers and flowering shrubs.

An old chapel beside the path, miles from a village

chapel
Paidhori

Paidhori, which means the children's town. In the background the White Mountains covered with snow.

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November 19, 2013
©copyright 1998, 2004 Vicki Sherwood

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