I was sitting at the restaurant terrace of Delina Mountain Resort, a calm autumn afternoon, lunch set on the table. My husband and son had gone to see a donkey — why, I am still not sure, except that donkeys are undeniably cute. Alone on the terrace, I turned toward the small ornamental lake, meant to be a peaceful centerpiece of the resort.
And then I stopped eating.
From the reeds emerged a snake, slender, patterned, and unmistakably busy. Its jaws clamped around a flash of orange. At first, I could not understand what I was seeing. Then it was clear: the snake had caught a koi fish.
The koi had been placed there by the resort owner, perhaps for beauty, perhaps for quiet company. But beauty does not stop hunger. The fish flailed, the snake tightened, and I forgot the food on my own plate.
Between Decor and Predator
The snake was almost certainly a Balkan whip snake (Hierophis gemonensis), common in Crete, quick, and non-venomous. Usually, they chase lizards or small rodents. But here, in the middle of a resort lake, it found an easier prize.
The scene was both surreal and natural. On one side, guests on a terrace, sipping coffee, enjoying mountain views. On the other, a reptile swallowing a decorative fish in full view. It was not staged. It was not folklore. It was simply nature, asserting itself where humans had not expected it.
A Night of Uneasy Sleep
Later, when the plates were cleared and the terrace was quiet again, the image of the snake did not leave me. That night at Delina, I lay awake, convinced that if one snake could appear at lunch, another might be sliding across the balcony outside my room. Sleep was slow to come, and when it did, it carried the shadow of scales and ripples from the lake.
Delina is a beautiful place: crisp air, stone buildings, lake reflections, donkeys waiting for pats from children. Yet even there, the wild can appear in the corner of your eye and steal the scene.
If there is a lesson, it is this: Crete’s mountains do not separate the human from the wild. They place them side by side. On that terrace, I learned that even a koi pond in a resort is not exempt from nature’s appetite — and that sometimes, the wild follows you into your dreams.