Made in Crete

  MADE IN CRETE (c) is our new brainchild. Launched this month after five years of planning, a food and wine trail is off the starting blocks. We feel itʼs about time the world discovers this stunning island and its culinary treasures - by exploring its agrotourism hotspots in both summer and winter.

  The World Health Organisation recognises the Cretan diet as the worldʼs best, not surprisingly having the highest percentage organically registered farms, bringing unprocessed products to market with little changed over the last few centuries.

  At the heart of the trail, our trail partner, ELEONAS Hotel is championing locally sourced, sustainable food and wines, some of which are only found in one region of this island. ELEONAS is an exquisite collection of stone cottages scattered across the olive clad slopes of the Rouvas Gorge in Zaros. Travellers can now 'Live like a local' with Greeceʼs hottest gastro travel team at ELEONAS resort, located in Creteʼs prettiest rural heartland, on a six day cookery course, with guided forays along our own Greek Slow Food Trail.

  The ELEONAS Cretan Cookery School offers hands-on cookery courses in Zaros, Greece, amidst the UNESCO National Park of Mt Psiloritis. Our daily classes teach small groups about regional dishes, local award winning organic wines, and the seasonal, natural artisan produce which underpins the famous Cretan diet. The perfect cooking holiday in Greece combined with a dazzling slice of Cretan lifestyle (www.eleonas.gr)

  The trail starts in the islandʼs capital and gateway - Heraklion - heading south through Creteʼs green hinterland and prime wine growing territory to the lush agricultural heartland of Mt Psiloritis National Park. Zaros village is located at the mouth of the little visited Rouvas gorge which provides Greece with bottled natural mountain spring water. The bustling working village of Zaros and ELEONAS Hotel overlook the sunsoaked fertile Messara Valley towards the Libyan Sea.

  This tourist free zone is a bucolic network of quiet rural roads which meander through the dense glistening olive groves, vineyards and family run farms – once the breadbasket of the ancient Minoan culture, and still scattered with fascinating ruins and remains like the sites of Gortyn and Phaestos.

More info: http://www.threesixtydegrees.net/?p=624