Lasithi Plateau

Lasithi is a flat, fertile plain about 850 metres up in the Dikti mountains, roughly ten by six kilometres, farmed intensively for potatoes, apples and vegetables and ringed by twenty villages on its rim. From the 1920s some ten thousand windmills with white cloth sails pumped groundwater for irrigation, an extraordinary sight that became the image of the plateau; diesel and electric pumps replaced almost all of them, and only a handful still turn, mostly for visitors, though the rusting iron towers remain in the fields. The stone windmills on the Seli Ambelou pass at the western entrance are older and were built for grinding. The plateau's altitude gives it real seasons, apple blossom in spring, snow in winter, and the Dikteon cave above Psychro is its main monument.

History

Its fertile soil, washed down by melting snow, has drawn people since Neolithic times, 6000 BC, and Minoans and Dorians followed, the plateau staying inhabited ever since except for a period from 1293 of more than two centuries under the Venetians, who banned settlement after repeated rebellions. In the early 15th century the Venetians allowed people from the eastern Peloponnese to settle and farm it again, and to secure the harvests they built a great system of drainage ditches, the linies, between 1514 and 1560, still in use (Wikipedia, Lasithi Plateau).

Highlights

• The plateau - a flat green plain enclosed by mountains at 850 metres.
• The windmill towers - iron frames in the fields, a few with sails restored.
• The pass mills - stone grinding windmills at the Seli Ambelou entrance.
• The rim villages - twenty settlements around the edge of the plain.

When to go

Spring for blossom and green fields, autumn for the harvest and clear air; winter can bring snow that closes the passes. Summer is cooler than the coast, which makes it a good day trip.

Before you go

The thousands of sailed windmills are gone, and visitors who come expecting them find iron skeletons instead. The approach roads are long and winding from every direction. Villages are working farming settlements with modest facilities.

Nearby

The Dikteon cave is above Psychro on the plateau rim; Malia and the north coast lie below.

Key facts