rom the town of Rethymno we take the Herakleio road. After 5 km there is a turning, which we take for the village of Adele. The road continues through the villages of Loutra and Kyrianna and Amnato. From Amnato, a narrow winding road climbs up through a green gorge with dense olive groves to the legendary Arkadi Monastery, that is located at a distance of 23 km from the town of Rethymno).
The monastery stands on a fine site amid dense greenery, with an excellent view down the thickly-wooded gorge and out to the azure sea. The date of its foundation is not known with exactness. According to one source, it was founded in the late Byzantine period (10th-13th centuries) by a monk named Arcadius, or alternatively it may be as late as the 16th century date on the belfry. It consists of a fortified building with two main entrances, a guesthouse, a refectory, a gunpowder store and cellars.
The fine facade of the church, in a Renaissance style, dominates the whole complex of buildings, with their vaulted cells and Gothic windows. The church itself is a double-aisle basilica and it is dedicated to St. Constantine and to the Transfiguration.

		n this monastery one of the most heroic episodes in recent Greek history took place between 8-9 November 1866. In this year the monastery had become the center for an insurrection against the Turks, who had been ruling Crete for some 200 years.
The Turkish pasha at Rethymno had threatened to raze the building if the revolutionaries did not leave it. As an answer to it, 259 armed men, together with 750 women and children who had taken refuge there, prepared themselves for the unequal fight. Unequal because the Jubilant Turkish troops were about 15,000. The defenders fought bravely, but the Turks broke through into the monastery.

As had been prearranged, those revolutionaries who were able rushed to an old cellar in which the barrels were filled not with wine but gunpowder. There, as unsuspecting Turks gathered at the cellar door, the leader of the revolutionaries Constantis Yamboudakis aimed his pistol at the barrels and fired.

he last act in the tragedy had begun. The aftermath was tragic; 114 people were taken prisoner by the Turks, while 3-4 managed to escape. The rest were killed in battle, slaughtered in cold blood or blown up. The Turks, too, suffered heavy losses: some 1,500 dead and wounded. Arkadi was suppressed but not beaten. The marks of the bullets can still be seen on the trunks of its aged cypresses. Arkadi for Greeks is a symbol of liberty, for visitors it is an oasis of tranquillity and finally is a place for spiritual contemplation and learning.

Photos and text taken from "Crete - today and yesterday" and "Crete - A tour of all the towns and villages" (Toubis Editions)

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