Today we just stayed in the village. It was sunny in the morning but then clouded over – but with Sahara dust rather than normal clouds. The forecast is for dusty skies all weekend.
On the far side of the new harbour there is a stand of kayaks for rent, and during the past week we’ve seen kayakers paddling between Sfakia and Loutro on several occasions, even when the sea was a bit rough. (https://www.enjoy-crete.com/trips/sfakia-loutro/)
Above the bus parking area is a fenced field with scores of pyramid orchids in bloom – we asked the owners if we could enter it to take some photos. After that we walked up to the castle for the view.
Coming down from the castle, we noticed sections of a footpath running up the slope from left of the Panorama hotel to the Thea cafe on the road and decided to try it. This is, indeed, an old stone footpath with stone steps in some places which zig-zags up the steep slope to the top road. We have a faint recollection of seeing locals scrambling down this hillside decades ago but never investigated whether there was a path or if they just went off-piste.
There were many lovely flowers along the path, nothing spectacular and many types we had seen before, but some were different.
Cretan houndstongue (we also saw some tiny red houndstongue flowers)
Pallenis spinosa
spiral seed pods of Medicago arboreal
broom rape
yellow poppies
When we got to the top, we nosed around the Thea cafe’s terrace – it has been beautifully renovated in the two years since I’ve been to Sfakia, and they’ve just added a lower terrace with a jacuzzi!
Niki's bakery in Mesohori is now open, and has a large terrace with a good view.
It was cool again this evening, but with no wind.