Samaria Gorge Walk

The Samaria Gorge is located in south-west Crete and at 16km long is the longest gorge in Europe.  It begins at an altitude of 1250m and ends at the shores of the Libyan Sea in the village of Agia Roumeli.

To get to the top of the gorge we went by coach, which left at 5:30 in the morning.  The drive to the start of the gorge was spectacular as we wound our way up through the White Mountains.  By about 8:30 we had walked through the gates into the national park and were ready to start the descent into the gorge.

The first few kilometres were very steep and tough on the knees but once we were right down at the bottom of the gorge it levelled off to a shallow gradient and the walking was much easier.  The weather forecast had predicted a heat wave of over 30°C but luckily it never seemed to get this hot.  It was still hot, but not excessively so.

As we continued to walk down the gorge we would occasionally cross the river, which at this time of year is no more than a trickle.  The first 13km of the gorge are part of the National Park and it is the last few of these where the gorge becomes only 4 metres wide and rises up 500m.  Once out of the National Park the scenery became less interesting and we finished the walk with a drink and swim in Agia Roumeli, before getting a boat then coach back to our accommodation.

The walk took us 7 hours including rest breaks.  As it is downhill all the way you use the same muscles for long periods of time, which meant my legs were quite sore the next day, especially my knees.