« Cocktails in Elounda | Homepage | Greek animal cruelty comes to our street »



October 06, 2008

The Iris Museum in Agios Nikolaos (at last!)

Whilst we were recently on holiday in Elounda we made a day trip to Agios Nikolaos. Whilst we were there we got to visit the Iris Museum.

0019ciris

We'd wanted to see the Iris Museum during our road trip last year, but when we were visiting then it was shut. It is a folklore-ish museum, about the history of herbs on the island. It is particularly concerned with how Crete's plants were traditionally used to dye wool.

Most of the exhibition consisted of cuttings from the many, many herbs that naturally occur on the island, with descriptions of their medicinal properties. These were framed on the wall. Large cases in the centre of the room contained samples of yarn dyed using different recipes, with booklets explaining the different recipes used for each colour.

040b_irismuseum

At the end of the museum there were a range of sample bottles were you could smell preparations made from herbs. I didn't quite understand the full story, but there was an information panel that made us laugh as it described the process of making "The Raki of the Smelling".

040c_rakiofsmelling

There was also a poem on display, inspired by herbs, written by Costis Hatziphotinos.

040d_herbpoem

It was certainly a quirky little museum, but we really enjoyed it and were glad we'd finally got the chance to visit it.

« Previous | Homepage | Next »

Comments

The comments to this entry are closed.

« Previous entry: Cocktails in Elounda
» Next entry: Greek animal cruelty comes to our street

A lemon tree of our own

  • The journal of a British couple who left the UK to set up home in Hania, Crete.
  • Homepage

Search this site

Powered by TypePad