Photo Safari in South Crete: White Mountains to Plakias Coastal Portraits

By dawn the van threads a ribbon of asphalt into the White Mountains and the island yawns awake—rooftops still shaded, fields frosted with pale light, the Libyan Sea a low sheet of pewter on the horizon. The guide eases out of Rethymno, and within an hour the road climbs into villages that look as if someone left them mid-conversation: stone houses, church bells, a cat sunning itself on a lintel. This is not a drive for postcards; it's a staged encounter with Crete's raw angles—gorges that dare you to look down, Venetian towers set against limestone ridges, and a coast that keeps its best light for late afternoon.