Climbing to the top of the gorge took about an hour and then we were greeted by the amazing view into Lissos:

Now Lissos is a green little valley with a lone sheep farmer, the remains of an ancient Greek temple, many ancient Greek burial chambers up on the hill side, some sheep, and a nice beach. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the remains of the ancient Greek temple.

We spent the day touring the ruins, swimming and sunbathing on the beach, and enjoying our picnic lunch. Late in the afternoon we returned to Sougia. I spent most of the time on the nude beach and enjoying the various local restaurants. The guys would sometimes take off for trips on their motorcycles. I took a trial ride of one of the motorcycles with Martin so he could see how well I could handle one. I guess I did well enough because we made plans to rent a motorcycle for me once we got to Paleohora (the nearest town that rented motorcycles).

After Soughia we took the little local ferry to another town on the south coast of Crete that is only accessible by ferry. There are no roads to Loutro because it is surrounded by tall mountains. This makes it pretty idyllic for me because of the complete lack of cars and roads. Loutro turned out to be my most favorite town I visited in all of Greece.

Loutro was the starting point for our incredible 10 hr hike up to the top of Aradena gorge. First we hike in a zig-zag up the mountain above Loutro starting from the more eastern end of the bay. The zig-zag trail of the red rock cliff face must have been painstakingly marked out rock by rock over the centuries.

When we reached the top there was a little village where we stopped and got coffee (Nescafe) and the voice had eggs and toast. Then we hiked through the village, to a paved road and eventually over to the top of the Aradena gorge. At the top of the gorge is a metal bridge that allows cars and people to cross the chasm at the top of the gorge over to a now deserted Greek town. In the next picture you can see the metal bridge across the chasm just below and to the right of Martin's finger:

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