The Last Chestnut Farmers of Elos: A Village That Refused to Disappear

Deep in the mountains of the Kissamos region, about 40 kilometres southeast of Chania town, the village of Elos sits at 600 metres altitude beneath the oldest chestnut canopy in the Mediterranean. In October, when the chestnuts fall, it smells of the season — of something sweet and earthy and old. Most of the people you meet here are over 70. Their children left for Chania, for Athens, for Germany. But a handful stayed, or came back, and the grove is still tended.