Among the three big fingers of NW Crete, The Rodopos is by far the wildest one. The asphalt does not reach beyond the last houses of the village carrying the same name, after which one moves on tough dirt road. Nearly at the end of the paeninsula one finds the hidden beach of Diktynna, after a temple dedicated to the Minoan goddess of mountains and hunting, also (and perhaps better) known as Britomartis (search this term on Wikipedia, and/or read below).
After photographing the sunset (www.panoramio.com/photo/93133701) on the ridge at the fork to the isolated and richly frescoed church of Agios Pavlos, I rode in darkness the deserted paeninsula, just to discover that Diktynna was busy with cars, tents, light and loud music... By chance, it was precisely the evening before Agios Kyriakos, who has a little church on the beach.
Those for which reaching Diktynna is not enough an adventure, can go further by a little track pointing in direction Cape Spanda. Close to the 370 m summit of the Zovigli ne finds some WWII barracks. Searching around, one can spot locations as this one: www.panoramio.com/photo/77280553
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Minos lay with the nymph Paria, whose sons colonized Paros and were later killed by Heracles; also with Androgeneia, the mother of the lesser Asterius, as well as many others; but especially he pursued Britomartis of Gortyna, a daughter of Leto. She invented hunting-nets and was a close companion to Artemis, whose hounds she kept on a leash.
Britomartis hid from Minos under thick-leaved oak-saplings in the water meadows, and then for nine months he pursued her over craggy mountains and level plains until, in desperation, she threw herself into the sea, and was hauled to safety by fishermen. Artemis deified Britomartis under the name of Dictynna; but on Aegina she is worshipped as Aphaea, because she vanished; at Sparta as Artemis, surnamed ‘the Lady of the Lake’; and on Cephallonia as Laphria; the Samians, however, use her true name in their invocations.
(Robert Graves, The Greek Myths I, section 89: The Loves of Minos)
Hans-Jürgen Bayer, Sebastian Becher, Hans-Jörg Bäuerle, Friedemann Dittrich, Jörg Engelhardt, Felix Gadomski, Johannes Ha, Heinz Höra, Martin Kraus, Uta Philipp, Jan Lindgaard Rasmussen, Danko Rihter, Christoph Seger, Konrad Sus, Jens Vischer, Augustin Werner
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