Epic Bike Ride to Argyropoulis

Our last full day in Crete, MJ and I stayed in Rethymno. We wanted to take a day trip to Argyropoulis, a town in the mountains that supposedly had some stunning springs and Roman and Venetian ruins. But the buses weren’t running on the weekend. So we decided to bike.

This was crazy for two reasons. One, while Rethymno is on the coast, Argyropoulis is in the hills—and the hills are enormous. Two, it was also about 23 kilometers away. Still, we were feeling like some exercise—at least I was; I’m not sure how enthused MJ was about this even though he suggested it—so we rented bikes.

The bike ride was pretty epic. The uphills were exhausting. The downhills were exhilarating. And I surprised myself. The last time I did a really epic bike trip like this was in the Portland, Oregon area, about five years ago when I went on a bike tour of the San Juan Islands. Back then, I had zero patience for strenuous activity. I walked my bike up all the hills. I whined and complained. I insisted on long breaks. One time, I was too tired to unclip my shoes from the pedals at the top of a hill—and I tumbled into a ditch. That was the last time I used clip-on pedals.

This time, it was an amazing difference. I didn’t get tired. I didn’t need to walk up the hills. I breezed up inclines that would have left me pushing my bike while crying like a toddler a few years ago. All those spin classes apparently paid off—big time.

When we were almost to Argyropoulis, we stopped at a tiny village for lunch on a beautiful patio overlooking the Cretan hills. The restaurant looked like it was in the back of someone’s home—and the owner’s toddler son and kittens played at our feet as we ate Greek salad liberally garnished with thick fresh feta; rusks with olive oil and fresh olives; and an omelet with cheese and potatoes.







We pushed on, down into a narrow wooded valley with sweeping views of the hills, and then up the other side. Midway through there was an old marble cistern that looked like pictures of Roman cisterns I’d seen, and I wondered how old it was. There was no explanatory plaque--this was really in the middle of nowhere--so I'm just going to imagine it's thousands of years old, built by Roman centurions or Dorian warlords.



Once we got to Argyropoulis, it was a bit of an anticlimax. Yes, the springs were lovely. (We had to bike down a big hill to get to them, then back up—more hills!). Yes, the old town was gorgeous. I saw this door lintel which used to be part of a 15th-century Venetian palace, with the mysterious inscription “Omnia mundu fumus et umbra,” meaning “all the things of this world are smoke and shadow.” It gave me chills.



There was a lot to see in Argyropoulis—but we had to rush through it, because the sun was setting and we’d only rented the bikes for the day. Still, it took us much less time to get home than to get there—we’d done most of the tough hills on the way in. We managed to get back just as the sun was sinking—I’m sensing a trend here—and we spent our last night in Crete eating good food and collapsing in bed in happy exhaustion.