Walking and Cycling in Crete
30 Selia to the Imbros Gorge
Map of routes 30 - 33.
Thirty one kilometres of road but very little traffic. This is pleasant walking except in the high season when the heat from the road is very uncomfortable. It is an excellent route for the cyclist. The road west from Selia is very variable. Stretches of broad new tarmac are interspersed with narrow eroded corners and stretches of gravel track.
The first three kilometres head west, mostly level.
4 km. A track heading south leads to the outlying monastery remains at Finikas. See route 4.
5 km. The road curves south over a ridge with good views east and west before turning inland into a double hairpin.
This large corner is easily cut on foot.
7 km. The land to the south now slopes steeply down to give good views of the coast. Here the shore is mostly very wild with steep cliffs.
9 km. Rodakino now comes into view to the west and the road drops down gently towards it.
10 km. Enter the scattered houses of Rodakino. A surfaced road south as you enter the village leads down to the shore at Koraka.
11 km.
The road takes a sharp hairpin over a bridge in a gorge before climbing very steeply up through a series of hairpins with the houses of upper Rodakino almost built into cliffs.
13 km. Olives cover the slopes below, scrub above as the road now continues west, mostly level, winding in and out of the hillside.
14 km. The road now has a better surface over a ridge where a stone hut guards the way. Two dogs are tied one each side of the road to prevent sheep and goats from straying past the end of the fence. The road then drops into the next valley above a ruined water mill.
15 km. The road reverts to unsurfaced track for 500 metres before entering Argoules.
A very small village with a single café.
18 km. The road now swings south in a large loop but it is not practicable to cut the corner to the next small village of
20 km. Skaloti.
21 km. Jagged rocks cover the hillside on the right as the road now skirts the inland edge of a flat coastal plain with a broad new road to Frangokastello, three kilometres on the left.
It looks as though this may be one of the areas next in line for rapid development, but the shore here has little natural beauty.
24 km. The road is now passing through olive groves again and the next small village Kapsodassos.
25 km. Continue to the right, still on the edge of the coastal plain along a straight road for 500 metres before leaving the flat ground behind and passing through the next small village at Agios Nektarios which marks the bottom of the Asfendos Gorge.
27 km. Beyond this the road rises gently through olive groves and then out into the open with good views of the shoreline east and west. There is a huge gravel fan above the road here where a gorge above comes out of the mountains. The path from Asfendos comes down the next gorge to the east of this fan.
28 km. Nomikiana. A small village with a church tucked under a cliff.
29 km. Vouvas. A little village with a small shop, a café and a bakery.
30 km. Vraskas. The road takes a big loop but there is no easy way of cutting the corner. There are some old ruins above the road.
31 km. Where the road goes over a bridge, a valley runs due north into a gorge. This is the southern entrance to the Imbros Gorge.
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