Trail Nida - Rouvas Wood
This part of the E4 European Long Distance trail connects Nida plateau to the the church of Agios Ioannis in the core of Rouvas Wood. It offers amazing views to the largest oak wood in Crete and is usually combined with descending the amazing gorge of Gafaris, also a E4 part, which is the most important canyon in Heraklion prefecture.
We start our course from the merging point of several paths of Psiloritis mount, Plateau Nida (altitude 1380m). We head southwards and after about 1.5km we get the junction to the east (left hand) and keep walking. We follow the dirt track and cross the small plateaus of Varsamos, Vourlokambos and Ammoudara. From Ammoudara we enter the descending trail to Rouvas Wood, having in mind to keep an eye on the E4 marks.
We start having the first amazing views to the valley of Rouvas Wood. We keep hiking, we first meet a small cistern and then the double-aisled church of Saint Spiridon at position Dio Prini, overlooking the gorge of Rouvas. The trail continues and descends to the riverbed of Rouvas gorge and very soon we finish our course at the chapel of Saint John (altitude 950m), which is surrounded by a really beautiful park with spring water, wooden benches and huge plane trees. From there we can either keep walking in the E4 trail to Prinos shelter, above Asites village, or descend the gorge of Gafaris.
