#lasithi plateau

[ukdamo]

Today's photo was taken at Karfi - high up on the Lasithi Plateau, Crete. I was there to visit the archaeological remains of the ancient Minoan sanctuary and town. The photo shows the view north to Malia and the coast.

[ukdamo]

Lasithi

David Constantine

Lasithi: notable for windmills. Summits are  The petals of Lasithi and their snow Streams underground. Ten thousand mills, sailing like toys,  Crank it to surface into troughs. At dawn The families come down to a lake of mist. Women  In black unmoor and swivel the bare crosses To feel the wind. The rods blossom and in its throat  A well reaches for water like a man Strangling. It mounts like birdsong then - oh lovely work  Of slowly scooping sails - it fills the reed, The wells respire, the cisterns wait like mares and when  In leaps, crashing like laughter, water comes, A full wellbeing ascends and wets the walls and brims and  Down the runnels like amusement overflows Under the leaves, along the root-courses, and men  Go about with hoes gently conducting it.

After the evaporation of the mist, under  The sheer sun, under descending eagles, Rimmed with snow, veined silvery with water and laced  With childish flowers, the plateau works. The mills Labour like lilies of the field, they toil and spin  Like quivering cherry trees in one white orchard

[tedtinaelliotte]

Day 70 – Flags

One kilomoter up, on a mountain top above the Lasithi Pleateau in eastern Crete, is the Tineos Stavros Chapel. It reminded me of the mountaintop chapels of Tibet, along with prayer flags and gloomy weather.

[vwcampervan-aldridge]

Restored Windmills on Lasithi plateau, Crete. There were hundreds of these in the past but now only restored ones are left , they use electric pumps now to draw water from deep wells and for irrigation on the plateau.