Rethymnon - Where Heaven and Earth Meet

There is a place at the western-most end of Rethymnon’s 16th Century Fortezza that has the most perfect 360 degree view of any city I know…

If you turn in one direction, the sea and sky are a radiant paintbox of blues – the dome above, the clean, pale blue of a child’s dream - the plunging ocean, deep cyan, luxuriant and endless…

Turn about, and there are red-tiled roofs and church domes, and pointed minarets left behind after the Ottoman occupation. In the old town’s narrow labyrinth of streets, flowers tumble beneath wooden balconies, and cats slink elegantly between the shadows.

This is a university city of stories, the third biggest city on the island of Crete. As the saying goes - “Chania for weapons, Heraklion for wine, the people of Rethymnon for letters”…

I always come to this view first when I visit Rethymnon – paying my entrance fee as quickly as any line of visitors will allow, scurrying past the shady entrance of the modern open-air theatre against the south wall and the single, peach-coloured dome of the Sultan Ibrahim Khan Mosque to the north, towards the stone ramp of St Lucas’ Bastion. Here, the ground rises up from the flat, open court that housed the city’s people in times of war, to the level of the defensive stone walls.

Domed sentry posts, just big enough for one man to shelter from sun, wind or rain, punctuate the view at intervals, and it’s easy to imagine centuries of Venetian, Ottoman and Greek soldiers watching the horizon for invaders.

It's a place I like to stand and stare for a while - soaking up the view, cataloguing any small changes in the complicated jigsaw of the town - before I sit atop one of the walls and eat and drink whatever it is I have brought with me. Today I have an iced frappé coffee and an orange – a gift from a neighbour at home in Kritsá - its skin dimpled and fat, and as fragrant as spring in the mountains. I roll it between my hands, loosening the skin from the fruit inside and then bite into it to open up the sweetness. Zest sprays onto my chin, and I know in a few moments I’ll be a sticky mess!

Below, I can see the rocks where my husband Craig and I once watched a diver slip into the waves with a harpoon gun. Hunting for octopus? Deeper in the old town’s shady streets is the Historical and Folk Art Museum, where we first discovered the beauty of the handmade textiles of Crete - red embroidered bed clothes and wall hangings that became the inspiration for the colours in our house - along with white lace-edged shirts, nightdresses and children’s clothes – all donated to the museum in wooden dowry boxes, where they had been stored like the treasures they are…

A little further back, towards the old town’s Porta Guora Gate, is the Archaeological Museum of Rethymnon - housed in a building that was once a church, then a monastery and a poor house. It’s a place I once had completely to myself, out of season, and where I discovered a display case full of the grave goods of a young, pregnant woman who died three and a half thousand years ago - perhaps a priestess - the richness of her gold and crystal jewellery, a mirror carved with Minoan lion demons, a set of scales ready to weigh her soul against the demands of the afterlife - all telling me stories of her life.

The courtyard of the same museum was the venue for a music gig at the narrow end of another year, when the sky was darkened with clouds and the cool night air sharpened by the wind. The courtyard echoed with love songs that reverberated slow and deep around its walls, so that passersby lingered, and then walked away holding hands towards Mikrasiaton Square and the triple-domed Neratzes Mosque.

On the Venetian Harbour front is the nine-metre-tall lighthouse built by the Egyptians in the 1830s - and on the slick, paved promenade around the harbour, I once saw a dachshund ‘sausage dog’ dressed in a clear plastic mackintosh with pink edging against the rain – a sight so unusual in Greece, where dogs are rarely pampered pets, that I couldn’t help staring, bemused….

On a street between the old and new towns is the music shop, where I once inquired about buying a piano, knowing that it might be all but impossible to get it into our house in Kritsá, up hills and steps – and that it might suffer badly from the extremes of temperature in summer and winter - but still wanting a keyboard to play and to dream over. The owner had said “Madam, if you want a piano, then I will find a way to get it into your house”. I wonder if there will be a time I take him up on his bold claim.

While I am conjuring up these memories, I think that each one is like pieces of my orange - sweet and sharp and immediate. And then, I think of Andrew, my best friend’s husband, a gentle giant of a man – the memory I have been stepping around with all the others.

We brought our friends to admire this Fortezza view when they were staying with us five years ago – Andrew’s last holiday. In my photographs of that day, Craig was playing tour guide, with a nonsense commentary, and a little flag held up for us to follow him around the Fortezza’s walls - and Andrew posed in the shady theatre in his floppy hat and shades, his hands folded neatly below his chin like the heroine in a silent film. Those last images are precious – difficult and sweet at the same time – and when I think about them, as predicted, I am a sticky mess.

Rethymnon is a book of histories that can fall open anywhere - a famous place of stories and letters, not just of wars and conquests, but of love and friendship - of university students and elderly friends meeting at music gigs and in jasmine-scented streets - of new brides hanging silk embroidered cloths on the walls of their houses, and stitching baby clothes a few months later. It’s a city of people stealing precious moments and making new memories together in the shadow of this monumental Fortezza – and I know that I will always find our friend Andrew here, in this place, and this view, where heaven and earth meet.

All photographs used in Claire In Crete are the property of the author unless otherwise indicated.

If you enjoyed the writing in this blog, you may also like my short story, Ann Hilder - a mystery inspired by the work of the artist LS Lowry and his shadowy muse, Ann, who was supposed to inherit her portraits after his death - but who was never found.

Ann Hilder is available as a paperback and ebook on Amazon at https://amzn.eu/d/bMidwmh

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