samaria gorge national park

Great place to visit, incredible experience in total! Very hard very long walk, but definetly worth it. If we would do it again, I would walk more slowly and enjoy the walk even more. In the end there is a small idyllic village with some restaurants. I have never drank anything as tasty as the fresh orange juice after the some 5-6 hours of walking in the gorge. The ferry ride to the next village with access to cars is a cherry on the top. Amazing natures miracle well worth a visit.

The longest gorge in Europe is a real challenge even for sportsmen, the next day you are obliged to have a day off :) but it is worth visiting: endemic flora&fauna, amazing landscape and black sand beach as a reward in the end of the challenge!

Did this walk in October.Got the bus from Chania, the bus ride up to the entrance was the scariest part of the experience to be honest! I expected the hike to be a lot more difficult from some of the reviews on here, but it was fine. A few twisted ankles, but nothing major! A highly recommend a hiking stick, you can buy them in the shop at the entrance to the Gorge. Makes you feel a lot safer! I wore a pair of running trainers and they were fine.The scenery is amazing, bring a camera of course! The orange juice at the end of the walk was also very good!!Probably the highlight of my Crete trip

I am definitely glad that i went to the Samaria Gorge in September 2014! This should be one of the "must see" places to visit in Crete.The Gorge is a natural wonder and breathtaking rock formations when walking down from the Omalos plateau to Agia Roumeli on the Libyan Sea. My total excursion lasted about 6 hours. I took lots of photographs during this walk. Samaria also shelters endangered species like Kri-Kri, the shy, endangered Cretan wild goat. You will even see the Kri-Kri. At the end of the gorge, there is a small town where you can swim, have lunch or drink fresh juices. I hit the black sand beach with clear blue water of the Libyan Sea to reward myself for the long walk. Then, I started walking around and discovering this small town which is called Agia Roumeli. If you would like to have snack or lunch and refreshments, I recommend you to go to Paralia Restaurant. During my holiday in Crete, I ate the most tastiest Gyros Pita here in this restaurant.What you should bring with you:1- Small empty bottle (You can easily fill it up at each stop) 2- Good hiking boots or tennis shoes3- Sun cream4- Beach towel5- Swim wear6- Flip-flops I loved this experience and highly recommend this if you're in Crete.

All the write ups are correct, this is a good walk and george with stunning scenery.I got a "tour" from iraklion it cost E$44. Great value for money as essentially this is a one way walk so if you drive it makes it difficult to get back, and it is a long day from Iraklion. Pick up 6am by bus to start-2 guides on bus give you a hand out of walk and the noted stop points where you can rest and get some water, they advise you of what time you need to be at each point so that you can make it to the end in time for the ferry which has to take you to the point where the bus has access to pick you up to take you back. The guides give you 1 hour start and they come behind you and make sure everyone they have is going OK and will make the port.Walk is down hill for about 3km at the start and down hill steep, rocks are slippery even when dry so take care. It levels out at a gentler down hill slope from there to the end. Scenery is stunning and you don;t have to walk fast to make it in time for ferry, just steady and plenty of time to take in scenery and photos. Took me at easy pace and photos etc 5 hours.Take at least 2 litres of water per person, water is from spring on track and some snacks, hat sunscreen as it is hot. Take your togs and towel no matter what the weather is like on the west coast, the swim at the end in the Libyan sea and black sand beach is worth the effort of the walk. The town has restaurants and places to drink no cars. other access to town is by sea or walk along coast. At end of walk which is about 2km from town there is mini bus that saves you the walk if you want for E$8per person.Tour cost did not inlcude park entry fee of E$5 and make sure you keep your ticket from entry as they want it to let you out of the park at the end.Ferry takes just over an hour to get back to the bus-nice sunset on board though. Got back to hotel at 10pm-like i said long day but it was worth it, really enjoyable experience. Still smiling when I think about it.

My devil daughter (17) and I did this hike in August of 2014. We had purchased a tour with one of the local agencies, and were up and at the tour office at 6am where we waited, and waited, and waited. We later found out that the agent had neglected to notify the bus driver to pick us up. Eventually we realized that we were on our own, so a quick Google and sure enough, there was a public bus leaving from the station literally two blocks away from the tour office in 20 minutes. It was kinda fun that way. Though I will say the tour only cost a couple more euros than doing it on our own, so keep that in mind (and they were very apologetic and refunded me the next day).The restaurant at the top of the gorge is expensive and we were served by a very crabby lady, although I doubt she's crabby all the time. We waited for some of the bigger groups to disappear down the gorge and then headed out ourselves. The scenery was amazing, we fed some kri kri goats, and marveled at the thousands of cairns. There was plenty of fresh mountain water to refill your bottle along the way and it was DELICIOUS. We didn't spend enough time in the old encampments because we thought we were in a hurry (we weren't, see below) but I would recommend doing so. At the end, there is cold amazing orange juice for sale and nothing has ever tasted better in my life. We splurged the $3 van ride into town to save ourselves the 2km walk--we were pretty done with walking at that point. We had a wonderful lunch at an open air restaurant (wish I could remember the name of it), and then headed down to the beach. In all, it took us about 4.5 hours.If I were to do it again, I would do some things differently. First, I would consider the uphill. My knees, which normally give me NO issues at all, were trying to die about half way down. It was torture at times. The uphill would be all switchbacks in the steep parts, and not very difficult. Second, I would consider a later start than the early morning everyone is scrambling for. There are just masses of people at the early start time and we were constantly passing or being passed and it was somewhat annoying and definitely not tranquil. And although the air is cooler and sun less violent in the morning, the first part of the hike is in the woods anyway, so there's plenty of shade--you hit the rocky gorge bottom right when the sun is at it's highest. And then there's the issue of the ferry back to Sfakion: there isn't one until 5pm. So you're stuck at Agia Roumeli (which is awesome, but you're still stuck) until that time. We ended up having to kill about four hours. Fortunately the two beach restaurants allow free use of the shaded beach chairs if you buy something (say, a beer) from them, which was a godsend in that sun and the devil child played in the surf pretty much the whole time. The ferry ride was fun but jam packed, and there's a mad rush for the buses at the end, so I recommend getting onto the stairs before the ferry docks and then hoofing it as fast as you can to the stairs that take you to the buses. A few unfortunate folks did not make it onto buses. Obviously, with a tour this is not a concern. The bus ride was long and it was 9pm before we pulled into Chania station. A full day but a really great one!

We were originally going to take the KTEL bus, but we ended up joining a tour group because our hotel was a bit out of the way from the centre of town and it would have cost more to taxi into town to pick up the bus. The tour was 30 euros so it was very reasonable and we didn't have to rush off the ferry and run for the bus - so that was an extra bonus.The hike took about 5.5 hours, including rests, for us. It was a fairly leisure hike downhill. The first bit was a bit steeper and there were lots of loose rocks. I think the best part of the hike was that you accomplished the 16km and saw the changing scenery across the various altitude. There was water accessible at all parts of the hike, so just bring a bottle. The water near the top of the trail was the coolest and "freshest." Dress in layers so you can take it off as you decent and as the day wears on because it gets hotter and hotter. A zip-up jacket at the top of the hike is nice, but the drawback is you have to store it somewhere once you take it off.Once you are done the hike, you will got about 2-3 hours before the 5pm ferry leaves, so there is time to explore the beach. We went in October and it was already very hot on the beach, so I can just imagine how hot it could get in the summer.The only drawback of walking downhill is that it is hard on your knees, but it is also harder to enjoy the scenery because you are so busy looking down so you do not trip. There are bathrooms along the way (basic) but no food for purchase for the first 13km whilst you are in the national park. There are food stands right outside the park.

The gorge is a nice walk. If you and your children are used to walking in the nature, you wan't have any troubles. If you are walking in an organised group there's a guide trailing behind to ensure that everyone reaches the end. The initial descent is very nice early in the morning and there are several interesting spots - but all in all it is a bit monotone. You should walk it at least once though.. :-)

I visited Crete with my family in August 2014, we stayed at a hotel in Platanias near Chania. I was the only one who wanted and felt up to the challenge of hiking the Samarian Gorge in the August heat of up to 32°C in the day. I decided to go myself with our rented car, so I woke up at 05:15 a.m. and got all my stuff I had packed the previous evening and started at 05:30 a.m. the 1.5 hour drive up to Xyloskalo on the Omalos plateau. I drove mostly in the dark of the night but as I was nearing the Omalos plateau the sunrise began over the mountain ranges of Crete, and I have to say this also a very beautiful sight. I arrived to the parking lot and the entrance at about 07:00 a.m. just before the park ranger arrived and opened the gates. I used this short time to eat my breakfast of yogurt and some bread. I then started the hike almost alone, as only a family of four also started at the same time. I quickly went ahead of the others and thus was alone in this beautiful scenery until I reached half way down at the Samaria village. At this point people started once in a while coming up the trail, they had started the upwards hike from early morning from Agia Roumeli. During my hike down I paused often to take pictures, in total some 500 pics during the day, there’s a lot of beautiful landscape and sometimes even animals roaming around to take photos of. Also stopped at most of the water springs to drink and eat some bread and mysli bars. I took my time hiking down and it took me 4 hours to get to the exit of the park 3 km from Agia Roumeli village. I did not want to walk all the way down to the village since I had read this part is nothing special, so I turned around and started back up again. Going up I did not stop as much to take pictures or pause and so it took me 3 hours to get back up to the top. There are several way to experience the Samaria Gorge: 1. With bus to the top of Omalos plateu, hike down to Agia Roumeli and take boat to Hora Sfakio or to Sougia (pedending on which side of Crete you are staying) and from there a bus to wherever you need to go.2. With bus to Hora Sfakio or to Sougia (pedending on which side of Crete you are staying) from there a boat ride to Agia Roumeli and the hike upwards all the way or as far as you can and turn then back down again.3. Or then go with own car in early morning to the top hike down and back up and drive away.4. One of the above but with overnight stay in either Omalos or Agia Roumeli.What alternative to go for is depending on how far and long you are prepared to hike, how much time you are prepared to spend on this experience and how much money you are ready to invest in it. It is not allowed to stay overnight inside the park of Samaria gorge so for a longer stay you need to stay somewhere up in Omalos or down in Agia Roumeli.I consider myself a normally fit person so it is very possible to do the hike down and back up again in a single day. If I should do it again only in one direction I would do it from the bottom up. This mostly because the hike down was quite hard on my knees and most parts of the trail was laid with quite slippery stones that angled downward increasing the difficulty going down. This was not an issue going up. If you have joint problems, especially knee problems, you should consider doing the hike only from the bottom all the way up or as far as you manage with having to go down again. My opinion is that the best part of the hike was in the last third of the way down and so if making the hike from Agia Roumeli up to the Samaria village and back down you will see the best parts.

If you can do this hike, do, glorious! The hiking is fun and challenging and the orange juice at the end is such a treat.

...and are fairly fit (it's a steep, rough hike) - then go! FYI - we're 69 and 65 and apart from stiff legs really enjoyed it; if you are anywhere near our age suggest taking a walking pole each as it's steep at the beginning of the trail (don't attempt to hike it from Agios Roumeli back up unless you're super-fit/young!) Mid-Oct weather was ideal - not too hot (would be really hard doing the walk beg-June through end Sept so you'd need to start super-early to avoid the heat. Gorge is frequently closed late in the season for high winds/falling rocks and if it rains; also I think it closes officially end-Oct for Winter. Absolutely no need to taker an organized tour or to be part of a group - trail is well-marked and there are local buses from the central/main bus station at Chania departing around 8/8.30 am which drop you off at the entrance. We went the day before and stayed at Omalos so we could do some local hiking then get an early start before the organized groups arrived. If you are getting the 5.30 pm ferry back to Sfakia and thence Chania, Rethymnon etc allow 5-5 1/2 hrs for the hike, more if you want a swim on arrival. We stayed the night and spent the following day on the beach before catching the ferry late afternoon to Paleohora. Scenery is spectacular, take water although there is plenty on the way, also toilet facilities.

The clue is in the title. This was probably one of the best and most memorable hikes I have ever completed and I would urge anyone who is reasonably fit and able to go and do it. The rewards are worth every ounce of effort you will expend, and that is likely to make a considerable total by the end of this 16km descent. My only other advice would be to completely avoid any staircases for 3 days after you complete your amazing journey through Europe's largest gorge. Otherwise, just do it......even just once, it's simply the best!

I booked a tour with one of the operators in Chania and our bus was the first to arrive at the gorge. This was a good thing because it gave us the chance to see the gorge with not many people around and make it to the other side before it gets too hot in the gorge. It was a 5 hour hike at a normal pace with plenty of stops. There are plenty of water fountains with water coming directly from the mountain so there is no need to carry a lot of water from the start.The scenery was amazing and my husband and I were very grateful for the jump into the cool sea after the walk.A great experience.

I would throughly reccommend this. Easy walk if you are used to hiking. But watch where you are treading. Very uneven under foot. Was something different. If you like hiking like we do you will find it not at all energetic but the heat can be against you. Great fun. Nice scenery.You will even get to see the kiri kiri (The local goats)

My wife and I had planned to go to Crete, but I didn't read about the Gorge till probably a week before our trip. Frantically and luckily, I was able to switch our hotel reservations and such so that we could stay on the Chania side of the Island so we could go to this. This is key - if you are staying in Heraklion, it will cost you a lot more to go from here, as it's further. Staying in Chania, we were able to take a tour for 15 euros each. You still have to pay the tour for tickets in to the gorge and the boat ferry ticket but even then it comes out to be a lot less than what you would pay otherwise. It is also easier to do this with a tour bus than by yourself as you exit from a different place than you enter, so you can't take a car. The bus picks you up around 6 AM and after they shuttle you to a bigger bus, you head over to the mountains. They stop at a Taverna for bfast (where you might just find the biggest donut you have ever eaten), and then on to the Gorge to start your hike. There are a lot of advise on wearing hiking shoes and all - my wife and I don't own hiking shoes and I wasn't plan on buying just for this. We wore our sneakers and they worked just fine. Just be sure not to wear thin running shoes, as you are stepping on a lot of rocks and it can be painful if you don't have enough of a sole to cushion the step for you.By no means do you need to be fit for this. As long as you are able to hike/walk for a while, you would be fine.The entire hike takes about 4 - 6 hours depending on your speed. The first few KM will take a while b/c you will be around more crowd (as everyone is walking down at once) as well as it's very steep and difficult to go fast. After that, as you get deeper in the mountain, it will get quieter so that you can enjoy the gorge by yourself. They recommend you take a bottle of water with you and some snacks. I high encourage you to take a FILLED bottle of water - doesn't need to be a big one as there are 'water sprouts' every 2 km or so where you can fill up your bottle. Snacks will be important since there's no where you can buy food till you exit the gorge. you will want to bring sandwiches and fruits or something with you. I also recommend an over the shoulders backpack or something you can carry on your back so that you can hold your water and food in it. Also take a hat and sunglasses if you can as it will get hot once you are out of the mountain shade and with the sun right over your head. The worst part of the gorge is once you exit, you have a 2 km walk to Agia Roumeli. that's a flat walk and a very boring one at that. However, once you are there, you can enjoy the lovely black sand beach and it's clear blue water. The water will help your feet relax. You will def. feel sore the next two days but if you continue to stay active, you will be fine. At the end, you have to take a ferry back to another area where the buses are waiting for you and from there they take you back to the hotel. All in all, you will probably not get home till past 7:30 PM. It pretty much takes up your entire day, but it's well worth it!!highly recommend!