Proud farmers and gun collectors, many Cretans live off the land politico road trip Land of vendetta Crete, a proud and lovely island, full of hate for Germany.

HERAKLION, Greece — “Right between the eyes.” Pushing two fingers into the centre of his forehead to make his point, Marinos cocks his shotgun and fires. The blast explodes through the air. My body jolts. “That’s what I’d give Merkel,” he says with a broad smile.

Crete is Greece’s largest island. Home to around 620,000 people, it has given birth to the Minoan civilization, ancient music and poetry — and vendetta. For centuries, people here have worked the fields in a burning sun more African than European, they have herded sheep through mountainous countryside, and they have very, very long memories.

* * *

I arrive in Heraklion, Crete’s capital city. It looks like any other Greek tourist trap. The streets buzz with holidaymakers on rented scooters. Shops are stocked with buckets and spades, beach bats and balls. Bottles of plastic water are piled high and sell quickly.

Crete is where urban and rural Greece meet. The division between town and country is a vital part of the story of Crisis Greece. Such is the scale of local agriculture that Crete is one of only a handful of islands that could be almost entirely self-sufficient — even without tourism. A valuable ability when financial catastrophe could be only days away. Cretans are stubborn. And they pride themselves on their defiance. During the recent July 6 referendum the highest No vote (with 73.27 percent) in the whole of the country was recorded on Crete (in Chania, the island’s second largest city). I am here to find out why.

That evening I take a stroll around Heraklion. It’s the weekend and revellers are out in force, eating, drinking and laughing in the streets. I catch snatches of Russian, German and American-accented English. I go to Lion Square, one of the town’s main squares. Things look good. The “Veranda All Day Café and Restaurant” is filled with people. But the designer clothes and handbag shops around the city center all have “Sale” signs. “Everything 15-30 euros” reads one. “Special offers” reads another. As everywhere else in Greece things seem to be carrying on usual, but look just slightly harder and the crisis is everywhere.

As I return back to my hotel I walk past The Gusto All Day Café. Tracy Chapman is playing on the sound system; “Talkin’ About a Revolution,” she softly sings.

* * *

“We have too much civilization here; too much Europe; too much everything,” says Georgos Chatzidakis, dismissing my concerns as he lights up a cigarette next to the “No smoking” sign in my hotel’s reception area the following day. Georgos is a native of Crete, and in a society that functions almost entirely on kinship ties and close friendships he is to be my guide as I venture inland — to rural Crete, where, as he puts it, the “true spirit” of the island resides. Without someone like Georgos, no one inland will speak to me, not least of all because I’m writing for a Brussels-based newspaper — whose website ends in .eu, no less.

Georgos is a language teacher, but like almost all Cretans also farms the land. Together with his wife, he owns about 350 olive trees, which he harvests each year. The plan is to go inland in Georgos’ Agrotiko, a small truck with an open back for transporting goods — usually natural produce — that almost all Cretans own. We fill up the truck with iced water. The heat is intense. “Thank god there’s a breeze today,” says Georgos. “Otherwise it would be unbearable.”

We drive out of the city. The landscape becomes gradually more arid. The hills and mountains are covered in olive bushes and grape vines. Tractors and Agrotika drive through fields on either side of the road. We pass a small church in a field — a private church, Georgos explains. “In Crete, if you have health or family problems you’ll go and hang some gold or silver on an icon. If it’s really serious you’ll build your own church. Sometimes people do it in memory of people that die. So many people die every year on the roads.”

“People in Crete never learn,” he sighs, as he roars around a sharp bend.

We are now winding through the Cretan mountains. The landscape spreads out beneath us. The road is littered with smashed watermelons. We dodge a dead cat splayed across the road.

Georgos starts to give me his take on Greece’s creditors. “Over 1,000 Cretan villages were destroyed by the Germans during the war,” he says, using one hand to steer the truck and another to light a cigarette. “Then of course there’s the famous occupation ‘loan’ the Germans forced the Greek government to give them. They took 90 percent of Greece’s gold reserves — all this to feed their troops.”

“I think certain people should keep a lower profile when pointing the finger,” he continues. “1,000 villages — wiped off the map. Skeletons of hundreds of children found. I think we should put all of this in an album and send it to [German Finance Minister Wolfgang] Schäuble for his birthday.”

* * *

We arrive in Matala, home to a famous series of caves that in the 1970s were filled with hippies from across Europe who came there to party. I sit on the deck at café Zafiria. On a beach, just meters away, tourists swim and sunbathe — it’s Greece at its best.

As I am about to discover: In this country, the further you get from the cities the better off the people are. Here, the crisis has hit, but tourism has helped to dull some of its impact. I meet Heracles Molosis, a 57-year-old who manages two hotels in the town. He wears a red and blue sports T-shirt and red shorts. "For the moment things are ok — there isn't a real problem. I have French guests, and the French love Greece." Everybody loves Greece, I interject. "Not the Germans," he replies.

Molosis voted No in the recent referendum and is one of the few people I’ve met who feels relaxed about the prospect of Greece leaving the eurozone. “Although we can’t discount the possibility of things getting worse generally, leaving the eurozone might even be better for me,” he says. “Greece would be a cheaper destination for tourists.”

We say our goodbyes and get on the road to the village of Meghali Vrisi. I am now entering the land of vendettas and sheep theft. “People are always stealing each other’s sheep,” Georgos cheerfully informs me. “What will happen is that someone will steal some sheep and then a local bigwig — someone seen as neutral and, critically, respected by both sides — will step in to mediate. It’s been going on for centuries.”

The landscape is even more arid. Cacti have sprouted up in the fields. We pass Mount Psiloritis, the highest mountain in Crete. “Up there was the Battle of Trahili,” say Georgos. “The local resistance, only about 50 or 60 men, fought an entire division of the German army — and they were winning. But at night someone betrayed them; they told the Germans about a path up into the mountain. The Germans surrounded the fighters and they fought literally back to back. Somehow they were able to escape under cover of darkness.”

“This land has produced many great heroes,” he says wistfully. “But also a few great traitors.”

* * *

We are now deep inland. We pass the Salty Virgin Mary Monastery. The heat and humidity have become thick and sticky. In the distance wind turbines turn slowly in the life-saving breeze. As we near the village Georgos is keen to set out some ground rules. “If you see a woman on the street don’t call out to her or anything,” he says. “We don’t want any trouble. And you don’t want to have to get married.”

We drive into Meghali Vrisi and pull up outside a house where Georgos has arranged a meeting with some local farmers to whom he is related. As we enter the house I experience the full warmth of Cretan hospitality. An elderly grandma gives me a kiss on the lips and as we all sit down the food is brought out. Plates of cucumbers, lamb, snails, cheese, olives and tomatoes cover the table.

“Don’t take a photo of all the food!” shouts a man. “We’ll end up with more austerity!”

What would you say to Angela Merkel if she were here right now? I ask. “Nothing,” he replies. “I would spit in her face."

And then out comes the raki. The men each take a shot glass, toast and drink. The glasses are refilled. More food is eaten. The glasses are filled once again. A woman tells me her daughter got married 15 days earlier and gives me a small basket filled with sweets. She asks if I am married and, when she finds out I am not, promptly spoons honey into my mouth to “sweeten my attitude towards matrimony.”

A tractor driven by a 12-year-old boy drives past us up the road. A man on a horse arrives.

I sit across the table from four farmers. All are dressed in traditional Cretan black shirts. Two are wearing white embroidered shawls around their neck and shoulders. At 53, Georgos Selioniotakis is the eldest, so I start with him. He has experienced hard times, he tells me, and was forced to sell one of his fields at 50 percent of its value. He voted No — as everyone at the table did — in the recent referendum because he had nothing to lose: He has no money deposited in the bank. “What Hitler didn’t manage to do through the use of force, Merkel is trying to do through the use of finance,” he tells me.

For Cretans, it all comes back to World War II. From the monuments to Cretan resistance to the German war cemeteries, the war has left an indelible mark on the island. Nazi Germany occupied Crete from 1941-1943, and the Battle of Crete, which began on May 20, 1941, is a famous part of Greek folklore. After Greece repulsed initial Italian attacks against the country, the Germans intervened and attacked the island. But the Wehrmacht faced stronger resistance from the local population that it had hitherto experienced. As the Fallschirmjäger, the German paratroopers, parachuted onto the island, the Cretans, armed with single shot rifles, blasted them out of the sky in their hundreds. The battle lasted for ten days and held up the German advance eastwards. The Cretans were eventually defeated, but continued to resist their occupiers, who retaliated in brutal fashion, often massacring entire villages in response to the killing of a single German soldier.

I turn to Marinos Michelakis, 43, who is also a farmer. What would you say to Angela Merkel if she were here right now? I ask. “Nothing,” he replies. “I would spit in her face.”

Is Greece in an economic war with Germany? I ask. “Yes,” he replies without hesitation. “The German government hates Greece because of the events of 1941-1943. Germany, Schäuble in particular, has a vindictive rage against our country, especially Crete, because his father was one of the Nazis killed in the Battle of Maleme Airport.” Schäuble’s father’s grave, he insists, is in the German cemetery here on Crete. (Karl Schäuble died in Germany in 2000.)

The Cretans may dislike Merkel. But they really hate Schäuble.

The way I see things, overall it might be best to leave the eurozone and go back to the drachma.

Michelakis has also suffered during the crisis. But he is self-sufficient, and feels that people in the countryside can weather the worst effects of the crisis better than in the cities. I ask him whether he thinks this might make people migrate to rural areas. “It’s already happening,” he says. “People are returning to their villages from the big cities.”

It’s an interesting fact of the Greek crisis that traditional migration patterns are being reversed. In times of economic hardship people generally move to cities in the hope of finding work. In Greece, it seems, the opposite is true. Life is hard for people here, but the mass unemployment and the inability to cover life’s basic necessities experienced in the cities is noticeably absent here.

“The way I see things, overall it might be best to leave the eurozone and go back to the drachma,” Michelakis concludes. Why? I ask. “It’s the only way they’ll leave us alone,” he replies.

His brother Nektarious, a farmer and shepherd, is just as blunt. “I voted No because both the Greek government and eurozone are taking advantage of the Greek people. They want to take advantage of Greece — and especially Crete, because of our geographical position. That was why Germany wanted to occupy the country, and especially Crete, during World War II, and that’s why they want to occupy us economically now.”

“They want our natural resources,” he continues. “The natural gas that exists on the south of the Island and the minerals — they want us as a trading crossroads. Merkel is aspiring to do pretty much what Hitler tried to do: to reach Asia Minor and Africa on an economic level. That’s why she wants to crush the country.”

Next up is Stefanos Papadakis. He also speaks with what I have come to understand is typical Cretan honesty. “I voted No, because if we keep on saying ‘yes,’ the next thing we will have to do is to lower our pants and get on all fours,” he tells me. And if Merkel were here? “I’d throw her off the Mavros Kolipos cliff.” The Cretan resistance, Georgos tells me, threw traitors off the cliff during the war.

A younger man, not a farmer, has clearly been itching to say something. I ask him for his thoughts. “No matter how hard Germany tried to hide its Nazi past it cannot do so, because it comes out naturally,” he says. “Germans still see themselves as the Aryan race of Europe and all other nations as inferior.” He seems pleased to have got this off his chest.

I ask them about the recent news that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is ready to sign a deal with the creditors. Do they feel he has let them down after the No vote? Yes, they all reply as one. “He should be executed,” says Marinos.

Then the guns arrive. The group shows me their rifles and fire them into the air. Georgos excitedly points to one that he says their grandfather Georgos Seliniotakis used in World War II. “It has killed real Germans,” he says. A man turns up with an automatic machine gun, which he proudly allows me to hold. “There are two things that will never disappear from the Cretan inland,” Georgos tells me. “Food, and guns.”

Marinos concludes the day’s festivities with a final volley of shots: “Don’t worry, Greece will never die,” he tells me. “It will always be Greece.”

This article is part of a series, to read the rest of the series, click here.

David Patrikarakos is the author of “Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State,” a Poynter fellow in journalism at Yale University and associate fellow, School of Iranian Studies, at the University of St. Andrews. You can follow him on Twitter at @dpatrikarakos.