The Dikteon Cave
Zeus's birthplace in myth โ stalactites, stalagmites and a pool.
Max Ryazanov โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท Deror_avi โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท Deror_avi โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท Deror_avi โ CC BY-SA 3.0
**The plateau itself is free and open**; the **Dikteon Cave is a low-priced ticket**. It is about **60 km** east of Heraklion (an hour and a quarter by car on a winding mountain road). โ **A car is strongly advised** โ buses to the plateau are very few and the spread of villages makes getting between them hard without one. โ **The descent into the Dikteon Cave is steep, wet and slippery** (about 15โ20 minutes down and the same back) โ closed shoes are essential and it is unsuitable for limited mobility. โ It is **several degrees colder than the coast** โ take an extra layer even in summer.
๐ฌ Ask on WhatsAppOpen in Google Maps โA flat circular plain at about **850 metres**, ringed on every side by the **Dikti** mountains โ a wholly unexpected sight in Crete: level green farmland amid bare mountains, with twenty small villages around its rim. The plateau is **exceptionally fertile**, its soil formed of rain and meltwater sediment trapped in the basin, and it has been farmed since Minoan times. It was once distinguished by thousands of white **windmills** with cloth sails that pumped groundwater for irrigation โ put up in the nineteenth century and numbering some ten thousand. โ But most **no longer work**: diesel and electric pumps replaced them, and what remains are rusting frames and a few restored for visitors. **Don't come expecting a plain full of turning sails** โ that image is from the 1960s. Its most important feature is the **Dikteon Cave** above the village of Psychro: a large cave of stalactites and stalagmites where legend holds that **Zeus was born**, hidden by his mother Rhea from his father Cronus. The winding mountain road up to the plateau is part of the pleasure of it.
Zeus's birthplace in myth โ stalactites, stalagmites and a pool.
A winding climb with views over the whole plateau.
Small farming villages around the rim.
Lasithi Plateau, 72052 Crete
**A few, and most don't work** โ the thing that most disappoints visitors to the plateau. At its height Lasithi had some **ten thousand windmills** with white cloth sails pumping groundwater for irrigation, and the sight was among the best-known images of Crete in the mid twentieth century. Then **diesel and electric pumps** replaced them, being cheaper and more reliable, and the mills were abandoned. What you see today are **rusting metal frames** scattered across the fields without sails, and a small number restored near the tourist roads. The plateau is worth visiting for its landscape, its cave and its villages โ not for the windmills.
Yes if your fitness allows โ it is a genuinely large cave with stalactites, stalagmites and a pool at the bottom, lit and laid out with steps and paths, and quite unlike the open archaeological sites that fill Crete. The legend of **Zeus's birth** here gives it added meaning. โ But be realistic: **the descent is steep, wet and slippery**, taking 15โ20 minutes, the climb back is harder, and the air inside is cold and damp. **Closed shoes with good soles are essential** โ not sandals. It is unsuitable for limited mobility or anyone with bad knees. And from the car park to the cave mouth there is a further climb (or a mule for a fee).
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