'Walks with Crete's Spring Flowers',
by Jeff Collman. Published by Beechwood Press.. 2003. ISBN 0-9545988-0-6.
Hardback. pp 175 inc. index. Colour photographs throughout.
Price £25.00 (about 40 Euro)
Contents:
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Introduction
- Walks from Loutro:
- 1) Half Day Walk: Loutro to Likkos
- 2) Loutro to Anopoli and Sweetwater Beach
- 3) Loutro to Livaniana, Aradena Gorge and Marble Beach.
- 4) Loutro to Agia Roumeli and Agios Pavlos
- 5) Loutro to St Catherine's Church, Anopoli, Aradena and Livaniana
- Walks from Paleohora:
- 6) Half-day Walk: Paleohora and its 'mountain'
- 7) Paleohora to Anidri and Gialiskari Beaches
- 8) Paleohora to Rodovani, Strati, Azogires and Anidri
- 9) Paleohora to the Koundoura Peninsula
- The Samarian Gorge and Gingilos Mountain Walks:
- 10) Xiloskala to Linoseli Col, Gingilos Mountain and Omalos
- 11) Omalos to Samaria Gorge, Agia Roumeli and Paleohora.
- Walk from Paleohora:
- 12) Paleohora to Souyia and Lissos
- Bibliography
- Index
From the moment you first open ‘Walks with Crete’s Spring
Flowers’, a feeling that you are holding something rather special
strikes you. This is not solely a book about flowers, neither is
it merely just another walking guide. Jeff Collman has artfully blended
these two popular pastimes and has come up with a beautifully crafted,
evocative homage to the South-West corner of Crete. As you can see
from the contents (above), the book concentrates on three main areas
(or bases) with walks from: Loutro, Paleohora and the area around
the Samarian National Park. Loutro receives the most attention, and
for those of you that have visited this splendid little port, you
will know why. Options abound from here, with gorges - such as the
Aradena - tiny villages - such as Likkos - and relatively secluded
beaches - such as 'Sweetwater’ - to discover, as well as the
daunting-looking climb to Anopolis, all within relatively easy walking
distance. I have yet to attempt the walk from Loutro to Anopolis,
but can hardly wait until that time comes, having read the superb
descriptions within. Paleohora makes a very nice base in the South-West,
and the walks from there are splendid. The Samarian gorge walk is
an obligatory inclusion, but the description of both this straightforward
walk and the flowers you may encounter are excellent. The climb up
to the summit of Mt Gingilos is equally mouth-wateringly described
and is a trip that I would highly recommend to relatively experienced
walkers. The proximity to each other of these three areas, allows
them all to be accessed in a single visit to Crete, and in fact there
is enough material here to take a walk every day during a two week
holiday to the island, or indeed, enough to return for, time and
time again.
Walking times are not given. This is a sensible move by the author,
in my view. We all walk at wildly differing paces, and I find that
my own walking pace varies dramatically from day to day. Also, if
you a keen botanist you can turn a two hour walk into one of half
a day, such is the abundance of flora to discover. What we have here
is a book designed for people whom enjoy a good day out, on foot,
with nature for company. Not all flowers get a mention. This would
be an impossibility, as Crete has close to 2,000 different plants,
of which around 10% of these are endemic to the island (i.e. only
found on Crete) but there are more than enough within, to satisfy
this reader.
The bird-life of these areas is effortlessly incorporated into
the book as well, though sadly without accompanying photographs,
which would have been a tremendous bonus. Not that there is a lack
of photographic material within. At no point do we have two pages
without at least one photograph of a plant or vista. These vary in
quality. Most are very good and some are superb. One or two are slightly
blurred, suggesting that they might have been taken at a time before
the advent of digital photography. Overall, they are far-and-away
the best examples of flora that I have seen in any book on Greece,
and I have seen plenty. For those of you who are as botanically challenged
as I, you'll be surprised at how quickly you'll learn to recognise
Crete’s various and multifarious species with the aid of this
book. If flowers are your main interest, you'll have to get into
the hinterland to spot some of the rare endemics, and this book will
help you achieve that aim. There are quite a number of guide books
aimed at walkers, with details such as walking times and exactly
which high road will lead to your chosen destination, but this is
an entirely different type of book. All necessary details are included,
but Jeff Collman takes you on a guided tour, rather than just point
out the bare essentials of any particular walk. Photographs of the
scenery and of the flowers compliment a thoroughly fascinating text.
We are warned not to stand "downwind" of a mature Drancunculus
vulgaris (Dragon Lily), as it smells of "rotting goat",
which is also true the other way round, as I found out on a number
of recent walks.
Transport is quite often relied upon, ranging from a taxi in Anopolis,
an early morning bus to Rodovani, or a boat to Agia Roumeli or Souyia.
Walk number four ('Loutro to Agia Roumeli and Agios Pavlos'), is
in fact merely from Agia Roumeli to Agios Pavlos, with a boat trip
from and to Loutro at either end. The final walk in the book should
be entitled ‘Souyia to Lissos and Paleohora’, as it is
described in this direction, and not the other way round. The author
asks one to get the boat in the morning to Souyia and then walk back
to your presumed base at Paleohora. You can, of course, do this walk
without getting a boat at all, by staying at Souyia the previous
night, or walk it in the opposite direction, though east to west
is better as you can have a good look at the Greco-Roman site at
Lissos whilst you still have the energy. Of the 12 walks listed,
I have personally walked eight of them (though I took a slightly
different route from Souyia to Paleohora; the route described in
walk eight, ‘Rodovani to Anidri’, by going via Platanes)
and can testify to the accuracy of Mr Collman's descriptions.
The book isn't large enough to be described as "coffee-table",
but that's where mine has lived since acquiring it. It's a "dip-into" book,
but its usefulness would be better judged on-hoof, as it were. The
index is thorough with the Latin and English botanical names given
for most plants and highlighted in bold where there is a picture
of a particular plant or place. Occasionally the English name is
not mentioned, such as in the case of the Cretan endemic, Verbascum
Spinosum, which Moody and Rackham translate as ‘spiny mullein’ ('The
Making of the Cretan Landscape'; page 54). There are no maps at all
in the book, which is a mixed blessing. However thorough maps in
this type of book try to be, they can be awfully confusing when used
in conjunction with a proper map of the island, though it would have
been nice to have had a general plan of the areas covered.
I have two minor quibbles with the 'Walks with Crete's Wild Flowers':
The first concerns the price. For what it is, the book is not expensive,
but £25.00 may be off-putting for some. This is a private publication
and, consequently, the relatively small print-run would have necessitated
the costing, but if only it were cheaper, it would sell more, allowing
for a higher print-run... A bit of a 'Catch 22' situation. Secondly,
the book is available only as a hardback at present. I do hope that
there is a subsequent paperback edition, not only to keep the cost
down, but also to enable the purchaser to slip it into his or her
hand luggage and feel that they are not damaging a masterpiece. All
in all, this is a wonderful book, not merely an addition to other
walking guides to Crete, but a unique travelling companion, written
with care and love for the island. A total joy.
Stelios Jackson 1/2/04
|
