Everything you need to know about hiking Samaria Gorge

If there is one thing you do when visiting the Greek island of Crete, you must hike Samaria Gorge. There are certain epic hikes throughout the world, and the hike through Samaria Gorge National Park is one of them. What makes Samaria Gorge epic? At 16 kilometers, Samaria Gorge is one of the longest gorges in Europe (some sources say the longest, others the second longest), is located in Crete's only national park, and provides stunning views all day long.

The Samaria Gorge hike starts at the Xyloskalo trailhead at an altitude of 1,250 meters in the midst of the White Mountains (Lefka Ori). From the top, we saw sheer mountain slopes still covered with patches of snow. At our feet was a steep trail winding its way down the mountain into the depths of the gorge. The Samaria Gorge trail starts with a precipitous hike downhill along a switchback path sometimes bordered by a wooden handrail. If you have any sort of knee problems, take your time and hold on. This part of the trail lasts for almost two kilometers.

On the way down we passed men walking two mules down the trail. Everyday mules pick their way along the trail in case any hikers have an accident and are unable to walk out of the gorge on their own.

Along the trail are informative signs about what can be seen along the way, including flora, fauna, and structures.

Some of the flowers that can be seen growing on the plateaus are peonies, dragon arum, marjoram, anemones, white asphodels, yellow phlomis, and irises. Dragon arum flowers look like something from the Jurassic period, large and deep reddish-purple. They have an unpleasant odor that is somehow attractive to insect pollinators.

What I loved about hiking through Samaria Gorge is that there wasn't just natural beauty, there were also little churches and remnants of villages along the way. Be sure to take a peek into the open churches. Many hikers kept on walking without a second glance.

The first church we encountered was St. Nicolas's Chapel (Ayios Nikolaos). Nearby is a plateau covered in perennial flowers, which wasn't always so peaceful. At this spot, in the late 1700s, there was an uprising against the Turks who were pursuing thousands of women and children hiding in the gorge. Samaria Gorge has been inhabited since the beginning of time. There are remnants of Byzantine churches and Venetian castles. At the halfway point is the remains of a more modern settlement. Until 1962, families lived in the tiny village of Samaria in the shade of the soaring walls of the gorge. After the area was converted into a national park, all human inhabitants of Samaria Gorge were relocated. The buildings have been converted to house the forest outpost, medical center, and lodgings for researchers. Samaria Gorge was converted into a national park in part to protect the Cretan wild goat (also known as agrimi and kri-kri), which is the largest wild mammal of Crete and has been around since prehistoric times.

After taking a lunch break at the Samaria settlement, we continued on to where our surroundings really began to look like a gorge. At the Gates the sheer walls of the gorge soar upwards towards the skies and the floor narrows and widens while the trail crisscrosses the river multiple times. Sometimes crossings are made by hopping from stone to stone and other times by traversing wood bridges. I have no idea how many times we crossed the river, but Romeo is convinced it was 100 times.

The Samaria Gorge portion of the hike ends at kilometer 14 where hikers can sit at a cafe, surrounded by a few cats of Greece, and enjoy a fresh squeezed orange juice, a soft-serve ice cream cone, or a cold glass of Greek beer. After refueling, there are two more kilometers to the coast and the town of Agia Roumeli.