On the mountain roads we on more than one occasion ran into these goats with bells on their necks letting us know they were there. So this post is dedicated to the goats we saw 🙂
Shepherding is one of the oldest proffesion in Crete. Bells for sheep and goats were used all over Greece and Crete of course.
The bells were the pride of the shepherd and they were used to monitor the sheeps and goats. The quality of each bell as well as their combination was very important so that the flock will sound harmonious.
The Cretan bells are hammered bells with thin sheet metal and consequently have a low weight. In addition, they are plated with bronze and bronze which protects them from seawater.
The sounds of sheep-bells allow sheperds to know whether an animal is grazing, drinking water, or trying to get away from something or even to locate animals that have been lost.
All traditional hand-made sheep bells sound different. These goats below we saw at Anatolikos Selinos.
This is going to be the one of many posts, so sorry 🙂 beforehand for the nearly same named posts.
Ritva Sillanmäki Photography 
Thanks for explaining and for the nice shots of the sheep and the surrounding.
Thanks, something that we don’t come across at home 🙂 here in the north in can be a reindeer and south just a deer our a moose 🙂
Oh, marvellous images of the goats, I never took any particularly close, and don’t remember bells – these are the best I got: https://suejudd.com/2017/08/29/one-116-and-one-117-one-man-and-his-flock/
thanks, loved your first image 🙂
Funnily enough, I prefer the second, with the late afternoon shadows and light!
We returned from Crete a few weeks ago. It is a fabulous island. Wonderful people. We stayed here: https://www.vritomartis.com – which is kind of different! Recommend Chania. Also exploring the mountains was wonderful and so would recommending hiring a car. Also explored gorges: https://vimeo.com/708961834 – with our guide, Hoda (delightful young lady). Would recommend the wine and the olives. As much fun as you like without your clothes on!!!!
Hi Richard, we did have a car for three days otherwise you would only see the tourist spots and obviously we visited them too 🙂 Chania we drove to several times … we went to the gorge. but due to my mobility issues I an not able to hike long walks. I will have to check your posts 🙂
You are right, Ritva…need a vehicle. Back in the late 1980s we hired a jeep and saw some lovely places, not a tourist in sight, they were all on the beaches.
we had a small car, got lost once in the very small roads, we were amazed by the google maps app, these roads had no names, you could hardly see them, more like paths and google maps led us back to main road which isn’t big either. unbelievable 🙂
I had a small book called landscapes of Eastern Crete which we used, and got nicely off the beaten track, lost sometimes and had to ask anyone we saw!!
we started out with instructions from a local man and a vague map, but as we got lost we had to get google maps to the rescue 🙂
Ah, OK!
Greatly enjoyed this post, Ritva, both photos and information about the bells and everything else!
Thanks Janet, I had to dig up some information about the bells and most of it was new to me too.
Ritva, I love this post!! And create as many posts as you want! I will enjoy seeing them all. Thank you for including the magical and fasinating sound of the bells! I love it!
Yes, the bells were fun, as the drive up was slow on the way up you could here them in the distance every now and again.