Moni: a walk through the old village

Most people pass Moni on the road and see only a few houses. The village is larger than it looks from there. Leave the road and walk down into the lower lanes, where the old houses stand close together behind dry-stone walls.

Stone, vines and ruins

Between the houses that are lived in, many are ruins. Walls stand without roofs, a vine grows over a doorway, and a wooden ladder leans against the stones. Other houses have been restored with care, some of them as rooms to rent. Moni is much quieter than Sougia, but in summer it is far from abandoned.

Gardens that still bear fruit

In October the pomegranates split open on the branches, prickly pears line the walls, and there are olive trees in almost every garden. The prickly pears, φραγκόσυκα in Greek, are covered in tiny spines, so even the fruit is best left untouched by bare hands.

The groves all around the village: Olive season around Sougia: from green to black →

A bird on the chimney

Look up now and then. On one chimney someone has made a black metal bird with a red beak, and it looks out over the valley towards the mountains.

Why there are so many ruins

In 1943, during the German occupation, Moni was burned together with Koustogerako and Livadas, in reprisal for the local resistance. The 2021 census counted eight permanent residents. In summer there are more people: guests in the rooms to rent and at a small luxury retreat with private pools. And there is a village taverna, An to Petyxeis, for a drink or a meal.

Around the village

A sign in the village points the way to the church of Panagia Kera. On the road below, sheep cross from one field to the next, and in autumn the dry ground is full of sea squill, tall white spikes of flowers that open in September and October.

Two churches

Moni has two churches worth the walk. Panagia Kera stands in the village, on the road along the riverbed, among olive and orange trees. It was once a convent for nuns. Its stone bell tower, about 20 metres high, was built at the start of the 20th century. The church celebrates its feast on 8 September.

Agios Nikolaos stands alone in the fields north-east of the village. Its older eastern part was painted at the end of the 13th century by Theodoros-Daniel Veneris. The western part was added later and painted in 1315 by Ioannis Pagomenos, one of the best-known painters of western Crete, with saints and a large Last Judgement. The frescoes were cleaned and restored in 2006–2007. The church is usually locked. The small round bell tower beside it was open when we visited, and its narrow windows frame the valley and the road down to Sougia.

The pyramid on the way down

On the hillside between Sougia and Moni, at about 290 metres, a stone cone rises out of the scrub. People call it the pyramid of Sougia, though it is round. It stands about 4.6 metres high, with a chamber cut inside, some 2.2 by 2.1 metres, and a low doorway facing west. It is usually dated to Greek or Roman times, but no one is sure what it was. The archaeologist P. Drosinou counts it among the Roman tombs of the eastern provinces, a type with no other known example on Crete. Another explanation is a kiln for pottery, which would fit its local name, φούρνος (fournos), the oven. Nothing found in the chamber has settled the question.

Plants along the way

The hillsides here are phrygana, low scrub that lives with sun, wind and goats. Two plants you will brush past on the way. Jerusalem sage, Phlomis fruticosa, has soft grey felt on its leaves and round yellow flower heads in spring, dry and brown by autumn. Thorny burnet, Sarcopoterium spinosum, αστοιβίδα in Greek, has side branches that fork again and again and end in spines. Look closely and the thorns join into a net that seems drawn in hexagons, with small red fruits caught inside.

Please remember

The ruins and gardens belong to families from the village. Look from the lane, keep off the walls, and leave the fruit on the trees.