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Nida Plateau
Prefecture: Rethymno
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Nida Plateau
79 km from Rethymno is the well-known Nida Plateau situated on Mount Psiloritis. Not far from there you will find the Ideon Andron, the cave in which Zeus was housed as a child.
The plateau is 1400 meters from sea level and has a place in Greek mythology.
The plateau is 60 km south west from Iraklion, stop or stay at the notorious mountain village of Anogia to get the flavour of these wild mountains. 24 km higher up in the mountains from Anogia and totally unpopulated, the Nida Plateau is a high grazing ground for sheep in spring. At many times of the year it is cut off; completely snow-bound.
On the Nida Plateau, which is used for pasturing during the summer months, you will find the famous "mitata", vaulted stone buildings, in which the shepherds live.
Furthermore the Nida Plateau provides skiing facilities during the winter months.
Places near Nida Plateau
The most important among the potholes-caves of the Anogia - Petradolakia area (close to Nida Plateau), and one of the most important of Greece, is Tafkoura. It is the second deepest cave in Greece and one of the deepest in the Balkans, reaching -860 meters below the surface.
It was formed within the platy marble of the Psiloritis area, probably having started on one of the many faults that fragment the rocks of the area. However, water followed the upward movements of Psiloritis, digging the rocks deeper and deeper to reach sea-level, finally forming this long pothole-cave system. The total, mapped length of the cave is about 6,5 kilometers and it is the longest of Crete. Tafkoura, together with the nearby caves Tafkos (-475 m.), Diplotafki (-400 m) and Mythia Kampathoura (-270 m.) caves form the deepest karstic .water conduits of Psiloritis, though which rain and the snow water goes to the Almyros spring near Heraklion.
Life adapted in these underground worlds giving rise to species that can survive in the ageless darkness as easily as their ancestors did on the surface. Apart from the different species of bats; snails, spiders, false-scorpions, woolise and insects are the main groups which constitute the fauna of Psiloritis’ caves.
The caves however are closely related with the people of the mountains and their diachronic activities. From their first appearance on the island the caves were their places of worship, the houses, the cheese-dairies, refuges during difficult periods and also sacred places. That’s why most caves have a significant archaeological and historic value (and like all the caves in Greece are regarded as potential archaeological sites).
Tafkos of Petradolakia in Rethymno prefecture lies south of Anogia, at the site of Petradolakia and, at this point, it is the second deepest cave, after Tafkoura, in the area of Psiloritis.
One of the first potholes to be explored by the French speleologists in the 80s and 90s, at an altitude of 1.437 meters, Tafkos of Petradolakia is 475 meters in depth and the length of its corridors reaches 380 meters.
Its entrance is formed in a limestone of Tripoli and after the first 100 meters it digs into limestone plates of Psiloritis. Along the way, the Tafkos of Petradolakia has over 20 precipices with an average depth of 30 meters and, several of them, 45 and 60 meters deep creating waterfalls with large amounts of water. The flow of the water is constant throughout the year, with large variations in flow rate at the depth of 23 meters and below. In winter, the water level in the cave forbids its accessing from November to April, while the conditions are quite difficult even during the summer, since the water temperature is only 6 degrees Celsius.
The Tafkos of Petradolakia, consisting of at least 20 impressive vertical wells with an average depth of 30-40 meters, has rich decoration of all kinds, such as stalactites, stalagmites, columns, stone basins, helictites, corals etc.
Along the largest chamber of the cave, known as “the room of the deer”, fossilized skull fragments of a deer were found, an animal that is considered to have been living in Crete 50,000 years ago. Similar fossils have been found in other caves of Psiloritis.
The Tafkos of Petradolakia ends at the siphon where the French cavers dived in 1991. The water circulating in the cave’s depths probably ends up in underwater torrents in the northern coasts of Heraklio.
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