GREECE - The islands - CRETE

[Music] miracles under the sun greece is said to have a thousand islands in fact there are at least three times as many welcome to a journey of discovery through the islands of greece [Music] this part of our series takes us to the real cradle of europe crete zeus's birthplace our journey starts in the west of crete near elephone leads us to the hinderlands and ends at the eastern tip of the island right next to the dream beaches of crete crescent shows us some sites where she finds a true treasure of the sea salt of exceptional quality up in the mountains we meet costas and his fellow shepherds together we celebrate the day of sheep benediction [Music] on the northern coast the location where the classic zorba the greek was shot former cameraman quanta lassali tells us why stavros was the ideal place to shoot this film together with mariana we collect the herbs she uses to make tea and oil and also learn about nature's healing power in knossos elaborate palaces teach us about a time when most europeans still lived deep in the woods in matala on the southern coast fisherman yosef shows us some caves just like he did over 40 years ago when sought out by hippies [Music] and shows us how important the proper wood is when making a liar and manolis takes care of a grove of huge olive trees that are over 3500 years old [Music] we approach europe's southernmost region from the west crete the last european bastion before the egyptian libyan coast next stop is africa this rocky island is home to several mountains over 2000 meters high and has crystal clear water in its many secluded coves [Music] frequent western winds caused the sea to churn carving rugged fjords into the rocks of the island but with the sea also comes a precious gift [Music] not far from elephantsi we meet crissanti tekaki among the cliffs as a restaurant owner she spares no effort to get the best ingredients for her kitchen she collects salt of an especially high quality chrysanthemum here if you take the sea away from me in winter or summer when i don't have the sea nearby i just wither it's just the way i am i can't bear to be shut up inside just sit around quietly in a chair that would kill me was actually born in the mountains but has been living near the coast for many decades now and visits the sea daily in the past she used to go fishing with her husband nowadays she collects what the sea has to offer on land the salt is very clean especially if chrysanthe removes its impurities i had a brother with kidney disease who couldn't take salt his doctor recommended using only clean natural salt no industrial product with chemical additives this salt has nothing added but water moisture just before chrysanthe sells it for five euros per kilo chrysanthe uses the salt primarily for her own needs and serves it in her tavern she only uses ingredients she has personally harvested in her opinion salt plays a crucial role in the quality of a meal for her it's the spice of life [Music] all of this is ours we buy nothing additional everything is local everything the salt and the oil too nothing is store-bought [Music] directly above her salt fields right next to her tavern is a monastery called money crisoscalitisa according to a remarkable legend one of the 99 steps leading up to the monastery is supposed to be solid gold only those without sin and who are pure and hard can see it it is invisible to sinners and the impure perhaps this legend scares visitors away for there aren't many [Music] only a few kilometers away is one of the main reasons for the growing popularity of this area in spite of the difficulty getting here elefonisi's famous beaches formerly an insider tip are still difficult to reach but attract many water sports fans and bathers [Music] only a few minutes east by shift another site can be visited directly on the cyan colored coast the world famous samaria gorge is part of this rugged hilly island due to its remote location and impassability it has served as a refuge throughout history whenever military forces have attacked the narrowest part the iron gates grants access to the white mountains it is only three meters wide directly behind the gates are mountain tops two thousand four hundred meters high some still have snow patches even in the summer vegetation up here is sparse and so are the animals we ascend one thousand meters before seeing the first sheep here we also meet costas who has been a shepherd ever since he was little just like his father and great-grandfather just like all shepherds i recognize the faces of all my sheep uh and there are good and bad animals in every herd it may seem strange but i talk to them every shepherd talks to his herd understands what they [Music] even as a little boy costa spent a lot of time herding sheep basically half his childhood at the age of 13 after his father had an accident he suddenly became responsible for the entire herd and stayed in the mountain alone with the herd [Music] i usually stayed up here for a month without returning to the village it was more than one hour away on foot but only if you were quick and used to walking in the mountains sheep are pretty autonomous these animals know their way but a shepherd is still needed for his watchful eye and his encouraging voice [Music] they have to be milked once a day the elderly including costa's father knew how to predict the future by looking at the sheep's bones the younger generation has lost this skill he didn't teach us these things he rather wanted us to know about sheep how to make cheese and how to survive in the mountains with very little kostas used to make cheese the graviera himself now he takes the milk to the valley instead and brings the cheese loaf back up hill to his old mitato this is the name of his old stone hut which has sheltered cost us from the weather in the cold ever since he was [Music] young up here the air and temperature create ideal conditions for the cheese to ripen when costas was alone up here as a child he got his strength from drinking sheep's milk and eating rusk and cheese and from being outside and experiencing nature [Music] on april the 23rd costa's native village a sigonia celebrates the feast day of santiagos patron of all shepherds on this day all herds are driven to the church offering an excellent opportunity for the shepherds to inspect the herds of their colleagues [Music] the sheep and goats do not always happily walk the way intended for them but prefer inaccessible paths instead even the experienced shepherds no matter how many are unable to prevent them from doing so [Music] [Music] the benediction marks the highlight of the day the first order of business during the minister's litany is the animal's benediction after that it's the shepherd's turn they kissed the bouquet of herbs with which they have been consecrated [Music] the whole community gets up early [Music] all of the sheep's milk is donated on this day hundreds of sheep are milked and their milk is laced with spices heated up and given to the guests it is served with sweet bread this is a relic of the tradition of the feeding of the poor even the sheep get a makeover on this day they wear carefully chosen bells the sheep are the instruments as the shepherds say a festive sound is intended [Music] [Music] the freedom i feel here is unique there is just god and me i like that joy after marissa [Music] we move along over the endless mountain chains towards the north coast [Music] down here near hanya lies most likely the most famous place in all of crete if not in all of greece many may not realize where they are when they arrive at stavros here we meet someone who knows exactly what makes this bay so special this is the location where the world-renowned movie zorba the greek was shot did you say dance come on my boy anthony quinn starred in the 1964 black and white classic which won three academy awards the movie depicted the simple rural life of greece and made it popular worldwide walter la sally was a cinematographer back then and stayed after the film was finished he fell in love with the place and chose greece to be his new home the location here was just the beach there were no buildings except for the little church and that house well this beach was chosen by kakuyanes because it had the necessary requirements for the story it had the house a little house on the beach with the mountain where the railway the cable railway could be built and we built a fake entrance to the mine all that was relatively easy and cheap to do the film was about a young englishman who inherits an abandoned mine on crete from his grandfather this is where he meets alexis sorbus who helps him to get the mine up and running again [Music] zorba you bastard mountain i'll eat your guts walter lazily chose this small village at the foot of the mountain to be his new home and has spent his happiest years here he was still young when he shot zorba the greek and he won an academy award for his work as a cinematographer he allowed the trophy to be displayed in a local tavern one night a fire broke out burning the tavern to the ground including his award today there is a new tavern that claims to have been responsible for the movies catering in 1964 although it was built later [Music] walter is a regular here and still revels in those past memories [Music] with anthony quinn it was some small problems at the very beginning when he said um well you know it's up to you technical people to get your rehearsals get everything right and then i come when you're ready i come and i do my one to only do one take i do my one take and that's it and so everybody sort of looked at him and kakianis didn't say anything so i said well actually mr quinn we don't work like that here and he was very surprised because nobody ever said anything against him you know nobody ever contradicted him he wasn't used to being contradicted but uh he accepted the point i said we technicians also have the you know the right to sometimes we make a mistake and it says sorry but we'll have to we'll have to do that again so we try not to but of course it can happen in the movie the workers needed logs from the trees and the mountains for the mine shafts in order to transport them down to the sea alexis built a cable railway which turned out to be a big challenge for filming [Music] the collapse of the of the uh cable railway had to be filmed twice because the first time it collapsed it happened so fast that you couldn't catch it it was like there was on one frame it was there and the next room is gone so i would i'd already gone on holiday because we we've did that that was the last thing we'd filmed so i had left and gone on holiday somewhere else in greece and i was called back they sent the police off to bring me back because they said that has to be redone because it's it's too quick so they rebuilt the part of the of the cable railway and had it recollapsed slowly so it could be it could be seen to collapse the owner tells us that the scene shots in the cafe were taken from an old film copy although he had to return the movie reel he was allowed to keep a few records with the movie's soundtrack composed by theodoracki so the rockies if you pardon me saying so it was actually quite lazy and none of the music in in zorba's is original music it all existed [Music] that is a a well-known greek dance called hasapico which is the dance of the butchers i never loved the man more than you [Music] you can spend years exploring crete it's a wonderful island it's like a miniature greece it's got the sea the mountains the snow on the mountains it's got the orchards it's got it's got everything that mainland greece has but it's sort of a little bit miniaturized well i loved it ever since i saw it and having traveled all the world i have never found a nicer place a more pleasant place to to live [Music] we fly like a bird over the sea we pass the beaches on the northern coast which are preparing for a flood of tourists we passed the coastal town of refuge with its historic venetian city and a mosque from the 17th century up into the mountains here we come to marulas a mountain village with 120 inhabitants set just a few kilometers inland a venetian influence can still be seen here despite all the earthquakes that have struck this region over the centuries [Music] here we meet mariana fountivasa working in the hills outside the village [Music] she is looking for wild herbs at an altitude of 300 meters and shares this endeavor with sheep and goats up here the air is very clean and free from traffic or industry pollution herbs therefore can grow in an ideal environment which is appreciated by mariana and the goats alike still the goats are a welcome help rather than competition for the herbs in all time humans were watching the animals in nature or they were tasting we can do the same they can taste what is needable for their organism if they if some plant is toxic they don't approach mariana is very happy to live up in the mountains of crete here she says she can finally breathe again she was born on the mainland in athens and studied psychology in paris she has been collecting herbs in the heart of the island for over 20 years now [Music] plants need our respect and our love just like the humans and we have to approach them with all our gratitude and respect and they give gently their properties to us to help mariana inherited the knowledge of herbs and blossoms from the elders of her village they used traditional medicine to cure various complaints long before qualified doctors came here she uses the plants according to traditional recipes to manufacture special oils rosemary oil is used for asthma and depression oregano oil is used to kill lice or to relieve menstrual cramps [Music] creta is a botanological paradise imagine that they are about a 2000 kind of plants that they are only here it's like a natural pharmacy for me this island residents know that and trust mariana to cure a lot of problems large or small a neighbor for example has eczema on his forearm mariana can help by administering frankincense lotion made from a recipe by hippocrates [Music] i believe that the nature in every place offers the medicines that the human so we are needed in the village i have come to to to live this knowledge was well known it's a knowledge that it comes from generation to generation i think that i cannot live anymore out of nature i live in a very quiet way of life here with my family and close to nature i try to help other people if they ask that's my life [Music] so [Music] away from the plateaus wilderness we travel to a more densely populated place on the coast [Music] or herculaneum hercules supposedly landed here to catch the cretan bull according to greek mythology it was a vicious creature roaming the island killing whatever crossed its path and laying waste to cities and the landscape [Music] here we find the street of the 25th of august but in the local language it has a different name street of deceit this is not because of all the banks which opened subsidiaries here but because one could regard irancleon as a major city at least referred to by the residents in jest it's only fitting to find a feature here that seems popular in tourist hot spots like this beauty parlors which turn their visitors into fish food little fish tend to the visitor's feet by nibbling off the dead skin painless and beautifying [Music] with up to 300 days of sun a year the greater part of everyday life takes place outside [Music] nowadays iraqion is home to 200 000 people making it the fourth largest city in greece in earlier times this was different its harbor belonged to a different much bigger city located further in the back country knows about 4 000 years ago while the rest of europe was still living in caves europe's first advanced civilization developed here a palace with more than 1 000 rooms bathrooms equipped with underfloor heating temples and a working sewer system supposedly more than ten thousand people lived here the minoan civilization was highly educated and powerful and yet their empire suddenly vanished why this is a question still highly debated by scholars we fly beyond the mountain in the inner part of the island to the south coast we came to iraq leon from marulas and now arrive at the place surrounded by scandal matala [Music] matala is considered a mediterranean goa hundreds of hippies found refuge in this picturesque bay during the 1970s they lived quite a happy life here for a couple of years before the greek military hunter drove them out [Music] here we meet joseph andreynakis a retired fisherman he always got along with the hippies just fine [Music] i believe it was 1964 when the hippies first arrived here about 150 of them they were really nice just genuinely nice people they arrived with their instruments long beards and were wearing long my clothes i didn't hang out with them got to know two or three of them and occasionally took them with me on my boat to go fishing [Music] yourself not only took them fishing but also showed them secluded beaches and caves once he received from hashish as a thank you not knowing what to do with it he asked the local policeman he knew what it was good for [Music] vienna there is a cave one can enter but the entrance is so narrow it's only accessible by a canoe inside there's a small beach four to five meters wide the cave stretches almost all the way to matala one can only get through with a canoe and flashlight it's that narrow and also pitch black during the stone age people living near the coast inhabited numerous caves during roman times they served as burial grounds in the 1960s hippies lived here and matanas sprang to life [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] now and then joseph was a little jealous for he had to get up very early every day to go out fishing sometimes they stole something and the whole thing began to stink as we say for example after a woman took a bath naked and went to the coffee house to get a glass of water still naked our fathers complained with the help of the police they sent them home [Applause] after the hippies left matala changed it grew tourists discovered the former idyllic fishing hamlet many taverns opened the caves became a popular sightseeing spot [Music] did you like matala better back then me the serenity of the place belongs to bygone times today it is a mecca for tourists very few go fishing joseph has retired his old boat belongs to his son-in-law now who uses it to carter on tourists [Music] at the foot of mount ida we find the mesara plain it was once rome's granary and it is still a fertile piece of land surrounded by olive orchards lies saros here we meet someone who made saros famous antonis one of crete's last instrument makers and a true master of his profession antones has had many jobs during his life he was a shepherd worked as a truck driver in germany which is why he likes speaking german was a carpenter and a dancer all of which he did with enthusiasm you can't make instruments without love you can't play them without love you can't sing without love you can't do anything without love antonis made his first liar in germany his yearning for music from crete was simply too strong he just had to hear the sound of a liar again manufacturing instruments became a passion the fulfillment of a lifelong dream i usually dream about what to do in life about something new i'm always dreaming about what else i can do adonis is always looking for exceptional word which he wants to speak to sing now and then he even sacrifices beings from his own house which was built centuries ago from lebanese cedar work it simply has the best sound [Music] is it this lebanese cedar was brought here by the turks 500 years ago our house was built back then [Music] it was a very aromatic wood and thus stays healthy free of wood this is one of the best woods for the cretan lion the best day great it is instrumenting antonis not only makes liars but also mandolins bazookies violins and loots all of which are unique [Music] every now and then he has an epiphany it's where i know from there was a woman on my doorstep when she entered i asked can i help you [Music] no i'm just watching and then she said mr stefanakis you are doing it incorrectly and how do you do what i ask well let me show you by spinning like this here this and this she showed me and now you try i was right here just like i am now and tried it and this is when antones woke up he was dreaming it again however he took this vision to heart and made his next liar in this new fashion it was made from thousands of little pieces just as in his dream and these are sixteen thousand pieces of wood sixteen thousand pieces of wood glued together and the result sounds so marvelous and donus had this assembly method patented in mine as long as i am in my workshop my mind is free of thoughts whether there are people outside or i have a family no i am just here for my love 40 years ago this liar made from a piece of pear wood started his career in germany he got so much recognition that he decided to become an instrument maker ever since then he has fashioned hundreds of instruments which have made him famous far beyond crete's borders groups from america often visit students and their teachers and in the end i say when choosing a profession please love it first love it a lot foreign loves his work his life and music [Music] starting on the southern coast we came tetsaros from matala to discover the amari basin and in the end leave the island from agyos nikolaos in the east the amari basin a large fertile valley it is well known for its famous cretan olive oil excavations have revealed table olives 3500 years old wild olives came from the middle east but it is due to the cretans that olive trees were planted and cultivated for the first time along with the greek conquests the art of olive cultivation spread to the whole mediterranean area nowadays olive oil is the island's main source of income right after tourism [Music] this is where we meet manolis charcutis who wants to save the olive tree he and his co-workers are witnessing something alarming more and more olive trees are dying especially the old ones there's a law that protects the oak tree the plane tree and the palm tree but none that protects the much older olive tree yeah even though it has nourished mankind for thousands of years now the progress of civilization is directly connected to the allies manolis is worried increasingly more trees have been cut down because their wood is in high demand or they are in the way of construction projects or because they are used as firewood mr grigore this tree has been cut who cut it off i did it would be just as big as this one over there yes this one was big where did you get this one [Music] using laboratory samples some trees from this region have been dated to be several thousand years old these results also allow another method of dating trees in a very simple way measuring their circumference only with scientific methods are we able to determine how old a tree actually is yet in another place in the east of crete it was done like this and it turned out that the tree was 3500 years old all measuring we do the height the circumference show that the trees are 3500 years old however this is just an estimate this tree most likely planted by the minoans has a circumference of 12.4 meters local initiatives are eager to undertake a comprehensive survey of all trees in the region even using the simplest methods we started with a rule that if three people couldn't reach around a tree it meant that it was very old and had to be registered as time went on we understood that three were not enough to have all trees registered and that rather we would need thirty eleven people are clearly not enough for this olive tree this makes it at least three thousand five hundred years old planted by the minoans the initiative congratulates the olive farmer for having a prime specimen that once was almost cut down despite the optimistic atmosphere manolis is still eager to maintain his ambitions olive trees are felt daily for firewood or public projects or simply land utilization we need precautionary measures now otherwise in 10 years you will only see olives and pictures or photos [Music] the most historically charged part of the island the la city plateau is our last stop it is the real birthplace of europe scientists have found fossils of elephants and hippopotami dating back to the stone age along with the remains of early settlements additionally this plateau is the birthplace of zeus god of all gods at least according to mythology this is a truly remarkable aspect of our civilization process for zeus loved crete transformed into a bull he abducted beautiful europa and brought her here she served as a namesake not just for crete but for the whole continent and bequeathed a paradise the greek islands [Music] you

Channel: fugadamore

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Keywords: emozionalita', eccellenza, trasparenza, fugadamore, top music, no time music, www.fugadamore.it, www.fugadamore.com, crete, greek islands, greece, fugadamore music channeò, paradise, paradise crete

Id: 2I2EcQiv8_Q

Length: 52min 27sec (3147 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 29 2016