Spend your days on the crystal-blue Libyan Sea and your nights in the comfort of small seaside inns. Enjoy a world-class sea kayaking trip amid magnificent mountains and Minoan ruins. The friendly, hospitable small towns of Crete's southern coast, and warm, sparkling seas invite you to explore. No Experience Necessary!

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Whether you have already signed up for a Cretan adventure, or are considering joining a tour, kayakcrete.com is here to help get you started on your journey today!

There are always a number of different concerns that come to mind when preparing for an international adventure, so The Northwest Passage has designed this website to help you find some answers. You will notice that most of the information we provide is directly related to the questions commonly asked by our participants. If you have a burning question about Crete that you can't find the answer to on this site, give us a call and we'll find the answer!

Crete is much more than just another Greek island. Much of the time, especially in the cities or along the northern coast, it doesn't feel like an island at all, but a substantial land in its own right. Which of course it is -- a mountainous, wealthy and at times surprisingly cosmopolitan one with a tremendous and unique history. There are two big cities, Heraklion (sometimes spelled Iraklion) and Hania, a host of sizable, historic towns, and an island culture which is uniquely Cretan: the Turks were in occupation less than 100 years ago, and the Greek flag raised for the first time in 1913.

In Crete's less known coastal reaches of the south it's still possible to find yourself alone, this makes it a very attractive location to visit and explore whether on an adventure tour or a lazy holiday. We suggest Adventure!

importantly to us we have made friends for life -- an experience in Crete with The Northwest Passage is as unique as the island itself. Whether we're exploring sea caves or just "spinning you fun-meters", we love nothing more than to share with you our most cherished treasure.

Please take a look through this website for more useful information on Crete -- whether you plan to join us on a tour or not. And if there is something you can't seem to find on the site please feel free to give us a call and we will do our best to answer your questions.

-Efharisto Poli (thank you very much)

Crete's first inhabitants, Neolithic cave dwellers, apparently reached the island around 7000 BC. They came, most probably, from Asia Minor, or less likely from Syria, Palestine or North Africa, bringing with them the basics of Stone Age culture -- tools of wood, stone and bone, crude pottery and simple cloth. A possible clue to the orgins of these people may lie in the importance of bull cults at certain centres of Neolithic Anatolia.

Development of the next three thousand years was almost imperceptibly slow, but gradually, whether through new migrations and influences or internal dynamics, advances were made. Elementary agriculture was practiced, with domestic animals and basic crops. Pottery (the oldest samples of which were found beneath the palace of Knossos) became more sophisticated, with better made utensils and clay figurines of humans, animals and, especially, a fat mother goddess or fertility figure. Obsidian imported from the island of Milos was used too. And though caves continued to be inhabited, simple rectangular huts of mud bricks were also built, with increasing skill and complexity as the era wore on. One of the most important of the Neolithic settlements was at Knossos, where two remarkable dwellings have been revealed below the Central Court, and there is abundant evidence that many other sites of later habitation were used at this time -- Malia, Festos, Ayia Triadha, the Hania area -- as were most of the caves which later came to assume religious significance.

It seems safe to assume that these changes were wrought by a new migration of people from the east, bringing with them new technologies, methods of agriculture and styles of pottery, but most importantly perhaps, a knowledge of seafaring and trade. The olive and the vine -- which need little tending and therefore help free a labour force -- began to be produced alongside cereal crops. Copper tools replaced stone ones and were themselves later refined with the introduction of bronze. Art developed rapidly, with characteristic Vasiliki ware and other pottery styles, as well as gold jewelry, and stone jars of exceptional quality, based originally on Egyptian styles. Significantly, large quantities of seal stones have been found too, almost certainly the mark of mercantile people. They were used to sign letters and documents, but especially to seal packets, boxes or doors as proof that they had not been opened: the designs -- scorpions or poisonous spiders -- were often meant as a further deterrent to robbery.

At the same time, new methods of burial appeared -- tholos and chamber tombs in which riches were buried with the dead. These appear to have been communal, as, probably, was daily life, based perhaps on clan or kinship groupings.

Shortly before 1900 BC, the first of the palaces were built, at Knossos, Festos, Malia and Zakros. They represent another significant and apparently abrupt change: a shift of power back to the centre of the island and the emergence of a much more heirarchical, ordered society. The sites of these palaces were also no accident: Festos and Malia both dominate fertile plains, whilst Zakros had a superbly sited harbour for trade with the east. Knossos, occupying a strategic position above another plain to the south and west of Iraklion, was perhaps as much a religious centre as a base of secular power. Certainly religion at this point took on new importance, with the wide-spread use of mountain top sanctuaries and caves as cult centres. At the same time, much larger towns were growing up, especially around the palaces, and in the countryside substantial "villas" appeared.

The palaces themselves are proof of the island's great prosperity at this period, and the artifacts found within offer further evidence. Advances were made in almost every field of artistic and craft endeavor. From the First Palace era came the famous Kamarea ware pottery -- actually two distinct styles, one eggshell-thin and delicate, the other sturdier with bold-coloured designs. The true potter's wheel (as against the turntable) was introduced for the first time, along with a simple form of hieroglyphic writing. Elaborate jewelry, seals and bronzework were also being produced.

Cretan bronze was used throughout the Mediterranean, and its production and distribution were dependent on wide-ranging maritime economy. Though Crete may have produced some copper at this time, it never yielded tin, the nearest significant sources of which were as distant as Iran to the east, central Europe in the north, Italy, Spain, Brittany, and even Britain in the west. While some claim that Minoan ships actually sailed as far as the Atlantic, it seems more likely that the more exotic goods were obtained through middlemen. Nevertheless, Crete controlled the trade routes in the Mediterranean, importing tin, copper, pottery, gold, silver, and precious stones of every kind, exporting timber from its rich cypress forests, olive oil, wine, bronze goods, and fine pottery, especially to Egypt. Minoan colonies and trading posts were established on many Cycladic islands as well as the island of Kithira off the Peloponnese, Rhodes and the coast of Asia Minor; a fleet of merchant vessels maintained regular trade links between these centres, and, above all, with Egypt and the east.

Around 1700 BC, the palaces were destroyed for the first time, probably by earthquake, although raiders from the early Mycenaean Greek mainland may also have seized this opportunity to raid the island while it was temporarily defenceless; this may well account for the wealth of gold and other treasure -- much of it obviously Cretan -- found in the later royal shaft graves at Mycenae.

Though the destruction must have been a setback, Minoan culture continued to flourish, and with the palaces reconstructed on a still grander scale, the society entered its golden age. It is the new palaces that provide us with most of our picture of Minoan life and most of what is seen at the great sites -- Knossos, Festos, Malia, Zakros -- dates from this period.

The architecture of the new palaces was of an unprecedented sophistication: complex, multistory structures in which the use of space and light was as luxurious as the construction materials. Grand stairways, colonnaded porticoes and courtyards, brightly frescoed walls, elaborate plumbing and drainage, and great magazines in which to store the society's accumulation of wealth, were all integral, as were workshops for the technicians and craftsmen. and areas set aside for ritual and worship.

Obviously it was only the elite who enjoyed these comforts, but conditions for the ordinary people who kept Minos and attendants in such style appear to have improved too: towns around the palaces and at sites such as Gournia and Palekastro werre growing as well. (It was Arthur Evans who named Minoan society after the legendary King Minos, but there is little doubt that Minos was in fact the title of a dynasty of priest/kings, a word rather than pharaoh.)

Very little is known of how the society was organized, or indeed whether it was a single entity ruled from Knossos or simply several city-states with a common cultural heritage. However, in an intriguing reference to Crete in his politics, Aristotle implied that a caste system had operated in the time of Minos. Clearly, though, it was a society in which religion played an important part. The great Corridor of the Procession fresco at Knossos depicted an annual delivery of tribute, apparently to a Mother Goddess; bull-leaping had a religious significance too; and in all the palaces substantial chambers were set aside for ritual purposes. Secular leaders were also religious leaders.

That Minoan society was a very open one was apparent too. There are virtually no defenses, internal or external, at any Minoan site, and apparently the rulers felt no threat either from within or without, which has led scholars to emphasise a military strength based on seapower. As far as internal dissent goes, it seems safe to assume that the wealth of the island filtered down, to some extent at least, to all its inhabitants: the lot of a Minoan peasant may have been little different from that of a Cretan villager as little as fifty years ago.

Externally, maritime supremacy was further extended: objects of Cretan manufacture turn up all over the Mediterranean and have even been claimed as far afield as Britain and Scandinavia (amber from the Baltic certainly found its way to Crete). Behind their seapower, the Minoans clearly felt safe, and the threat of attack or piracy was further reduced by the network of colonies or close allies throughout the Cycladic islands -- Thira most famously but also at Milos, Naxos, Paros, Mikonos, Andhros, and Dilos -- and in Rhodes, Cyprus, Syria and North Africa. Nevertheless, this appears to have remained a trading empire rather than a military one.

If the New Palaces period was a high point of Minoan power, it also marked the apogee of arts and crafts in the island; again, the bulk of the objects you'll admire in the museums dates from this era. The frescoes -- startling in their freshness and vitality -- are the most famous and obviously visable