Drapanias

Drapanias on the river and the Gulf of Kissamos

Drapanias (Δραπανιάς) lies about a kilometre back from the shore, at a height of some forty metres, at the point where the river Drapanianos emerges on to the plain beside the Gulf of Kissamos; Kissamos itself is only a few kilometres to the west, and frequent buses on the Chania–Kissamos route pass through. Water and fertile soil have shaped the economy of the village, which had just over five hundred inhabitants a generation ago and a little over four hundred at the 2021 census: it sits in the middle of one of the largest unbroken olive groves in Crete, and besides oil it produces wine, citrus fruit and vegetables on small plots. The part by the sea is known as Kato Drapanias, the upper quarter as Ano Drapanias. Along the coast there are quiet beaches suited to swimming and water sports; the village itself has kept its farming character and has not become a resort.

From the coast to the interior

The village chronicle regards Drapanias as the successor of the ancient coastal settlement of Mithymna (Methymna), a town known to the Roman writer Aelian, who tells a curious story of a Cretan fisherman there and a remedy for rabies: the inhabitants are said to have abandoned the shore little by little because of the constant threat of pirates and to have settled inland. Excavations by the sea have brought to light house foundations, an ancient water conduit and large quantities of pottery, which make this origin tangible; traces of habitation in the district go back to about 1600 BC. The English traveller Robert Pashley, riding through in the 1830s, was the first to identify the remains at the eastern edge of the plain with the ancient town, and its name was revived for the former municipality of Mithymna, of which Drapanias was the seat until 2011.

St Nicholas and the history of the church

The principal church of the village is that of St Nicholas (Agios Nikolaos). Its construction dragged on through the second half of the 19th century: it was built between 1850 and 1880 and consecrated in 1896. Inside it preserves works of Cretan church painting, including icons of the 16th and 17th centuries, an image of St Nicholas from the 14th century that is venerated as miracle-working, and a small bell with its frame, assigned to the 15th century.

A place of honour belongs to the iconostasis of cypress wood, carved by Ioannis Koufakis in 1911. Gilding and painting were carried out later – an inscription gives the year 1931 – by the Danielaioi, the brotherhood of painters from Mount Athos. The screen separates the sanctuary from the nave and at the same time unites carving, architecture and icon painting in a single theological programme.

The two old churches are worth the walk down towards the coast. The single-aisled church of St George stands in a field of Minoan and Roman remains, on the walls of a Roman bath complex into which it was built, and keeps wall paintings of the early 15th century; unusually, its altar faces south instead of east, which tradition explains by saying that an older structure, erected by a legendary king in memory of his son, was here converted into a church. Agios Panteleimon is a cross-in-square church, dedicated also to Saints Spyridon and Charalambos, and is considered one of the important places of pilgrimage in the district; the feast of the physician saint falls on 27 July. In all, the parish counts eleven further churches and chapels of the 16th to 19th centuries, to which a chapel of St Gerasimos was added in 1981.

The Ottoman tower and the memory of the coast

Near the village an Ottoman watchtower survives, with an old well beside it. Such buildings kept watch over the roads and the open stretches of coast and gave warning of approaching armed bands and of raids by pirates. The tower is a reminder that the Gulf of Kissamos was not only farmland but also a frontier zone on the sea – as it proved again in 1821, when the ship Terpsichore put in on this shore with men to besiege the fortress of Kissamos. An older layer of the same story lies three kilometres outside the village, where the Venetians built the country house known as the Villa Trevisan.

Makry Spilio and the church of Christ

Makry Spilio (Μακρύ Σπήλιο) means “Long Cave” in Greek. This natural shelter lies not far from the village; a small church of Christ has been fitted into its entrance. The combination of cave and chapel is characteristic of the religious landscape of Crete: a natural space becomes a place of prayer and passes into the memory of the neighbouring settlement. In times of need such caves also offered the villagers a refuge.

The tradition of St Nicholas’s protection

In the village they tell how, under Ottoman rule, attackers set out to burn Drapanias down, but St Nicholas hid the settlement from their eyes. The legend accounts for the particular devotion to the patron saint, whose feast is kept on 6 December, and preserves the memory of how the inhabitants came through dangerous times.

The village in the Second World War

The 20th century has left its mark as well. On 20 and 21 May 1941, in the first days of the Battle of Crete, the inhabitants resisted the German paratroopers. Then, on 8 May 1944, the village was bombed by British aircraft that took it for a German camp; six civilians lost their lives. Both events are remembered in Drapanias to this day.

In the surrounding area

Around Drapanias there are archaeological traces of settlements of the Minoan and Classical periods, as well as Nopigia with its church of St George and other monuments of western Kissamos. The village therefore makes a good stop on a route linking coast, olive groves, ancient sites and the ecclesiastical heritage of the district. On the shore below, the broken hull of the Egyptian freighter Manassa Rose M, which ran aground here in January 2022, is a more recent landmark. Anyone who comes in November or December will see the olive harvest: the nets are spread beneath the trees, and the oil mills of the plain work on into the night.