Anarchists in Crete
Unplanned travel can be draining (I know, cue violins, right?).
More so in the heat, and even more so in an expensive country like Austria, which is where I landed after a month or so travelling on trains.
I was tired of moving, tired of the travel logistics that comes with spontaneous travel. I wanted to park myself somewhere and not think for a while.
And it wasn’t just the heat, the further north and west I headed from Türkiye, the more everything cost.
Sunset view of Chania Harbour, shot from the old university
That's a downside to starting a trip in a low-cost place, it becomes your (probably unrealistic) reference point.
I thought about joining the boys from Türkiye who were somewhere in Amsterdam by this stage (apparently having to sleep rough one night).
It was an appealing idea, but they would only be there momentarily, and I'd have to make new plans not long after I arrived.
Ultimately, after what can barely be described as research, I jumped a plane to Crete. "If I'm going to be hot, I may as well be somewhere I can swim and won't haemorrhage cash" I reasoned to myself.
Somehow, I managed to escape the post-Covid airport chaos in Vienna and the knock-on effects of thousands of cancelled flights in Europe that were now a feature of summer 2022 and flew into Crete without much drama.
Again, with very little research, I decided that Chania, Crete would be the place to recuperate.
At first it didn't feel like an amazing choice. My mind had been saturated with sanitised travel photos that omit the gritty realities of Greece that you discover in bus stations and backstreets away from the Old Town and tourist go-to spots.
Crete street scene
The northern side of Crete is dotted with a few old Venetian port towns. Chania is one of the more popular due to its picturesque harbour, multi storey homes dating back to the 14th century and surrounding cobbled alleyways.
The town was heavily bombarded in WW2 so it's hard to know what is original and what is reconstructed but if you don't go looking too hard it mostly feels authentic.
Different in style to the whitewashed buildings of Mykonos, but still pretty.
It’s also a good launching point for some day cruises that take you west to bays and beaches only accessible by boat (I might post a bunch of those photos in another story).
Greece is obviously the holiday destination of Europe, but Chania has a more couples and less of a Greek-party vibe to it.
Probably because the tightly packed alley ways have a couples-friendly mix of shops, cafes, restaurants, old-world intrigue, and the opportunity to stay in an Airbnb in the old part of town.
There's still plenty to photograph here but the desire to stay away from ordinary leads to interesting and unexpected places and people. Like the local anarchist squatters...
The money to be made from the Airbnb revolution combined with the summer tourist waves is rapidly driving out the locals that used to live in old town. The authenticity of a living town is being transformed into a tourist-only accommodation town.
Open air concert
So, when the local university sold a campus building and surrounding grounds overlooking Chania harbour to a property developer wanting to build a resort, local anarchists took a stand, moved in, and have been squatting since.
It seems to run a bit like a communal hostel with former administrative rooms converted into living quarters and larger lecture style rooms reserved as meeting places.
There's even a communal clothing pool. From time to time, they use one of the old lecture rooms as a mini-theatre where sympathetic local parents bring their children to explainer-plays about their cause.
The outside grounds are considered a public park, offering a different perspective of the harbour and lighthouse, and a place for nighttime concerts of traditional songs sung by the children of Chania.
The squatters are a mix of young and old, some giving off the vibe of opportunistic transients, and others leading more normal daily lives.
Alexandra was a schoolteacher, Aphrodite (yes, her real name) was studying architecture, and others like Cypriot (everyone called him that because his real name was too hard to pronounce), well they seemed to be happy just hanging around.
In the streets surrounding the campus there were enough derelict homes to be noticeable.
Not all were wasted with some of them occupied by squatters who had at one time, or another, been arrested and given court orders to stay away from the main campus building.
I'm guessing it's just a matter of time before the run-down places are bought and renovated for more tourist accommodation.
And that is the conundrum; as a traveller you’d want to experience something authentic and distinctly local.
But the more that people want to have that experience, the more enterprising locals will cater for those travellers with Airbnb’s and hotels, souvenir shops selling rubbish trinkets and immediately forgettable holiday memorabilia, and upmarket restaurants, diluting the very experience the travellers come to see, and pricing out locals that want to live there.
That said, it’s also a windfall for the fortunate beneficiaries like Lefteris who grew up and still live in the old town terrace of his mother, which she probably inherited from her parents, and their parents before them.
And I managed to catch a local wedding with everyone dressed in traditional attire, proving there’s still a little of old-Crete if you look.
I visited the old campus a few times, chatting to some of the squatters. They were mostly friendly but just guarded enough to notice, understandably. Being arrested probably does that to you.
Taking photos was therefore a delicate exercise. Faces were out, random photos of rooms and uneaten fried eggs were ok!
Occasionally I would also see some of the residents around town busking with traditional Greek instruments, playing traditional Greek/Cretan music.
I think they have maybe mislabelled themselves; they may be anarchists and squatters but that doesn't describe their efforts to preserve their culture and town.
If I ever return to Chania, I hope I don't discover the cause was lost.
