Crete [antikvár]

The Island and the PeopleIt is not at all unusual to hear the proud people of Crete refer to their beloved island as a 'continent'. As a holiday destination, this richly varied island is as self-contained as its people are self-assured. Nowhere is it easier to combine lazing on a beach with cultural enrichment, or to indulge yourself with the best Greek seafood, cheese and wine, and then work them off with a bracing hike through the lovelymeadows and mountains of the interior.Crete is very much its own country. At a crossroads between the Middle East, Africa and the western Mediterranean, its civilization is the oldest in Europe. After centuries of courageous and often violent struggle against the Turks to achieve union with Greece, it now stands resolutely apart from it. Greece's largest island, it is Texas with a more ancient pride, a more cheerful Sicily, Scotland with more sun. Independent-minded people? Who else would name their sons Eleftherios - 'Freedom'?In the BeginningThe Levantine and European roots of Cretan culture are 'documented' by Greek mythology. A princess of what is now Lebanon was walking down by the beach one day when she noticed among her father's prize herd of cattle a handsome, new, pure white bull. Playful rather than fierce, it let her ride on its back, feed it flowers, garland its horns. Suddenly it floated with her out to sea and swam to the island of Crete. There, the bull turned out to be Zeus in disguise, changed into an eagle and ravished the princess. The first son of the union was Minos, King of Knossos. The princess's name: Europa.