Introduction

Crete is a wonderful island, full of contrasts both natural and cultural. To say that it has a long history is a considerable understatement. More importantly its people are very friendly and helpful, and at the right time of year its climate is equally hospitable. 

So hopefully a very enriching experience awaits a hiker willing to deal with the ups and downs both literal and metaphorical of walking across Crete. 

Given all this it seems astonishing that there were so few people on the trail. Hopefully these notes can help encourage others to follow and enjoy it.

The Cretan Way share a lot of its route with the E4 (European long distance walking path) and there is a link to both sites in the links section.

It is also worth mentioning right up front that the Cretan Way seems to be a work in progress. I relied much more on the KML file and my own observations that on any "official" waymarking if such a thing could be said to exist. 

Another thing to mention here is that in April the weather was as close to perfect as I could wish for, but the White Mountain massif was not passable except for ski touring so I was obliged to skip the section from Omalos to Amoudari (as shown on my map). Additionally Psiloritis was also snow bound, but in this case there is an alternative route to walk around it. Later in the year these would be free of snow, but at the considerable disadvantage of everything else being much too hot and probably too dry as well.

Finally there are places where I either lost the route for a short while or decided to walk a slightly different way for a few kilometres. Some of these should definitely not be followed. I will try and indicate which these are on the map.