I am standing in a narrow, rectangular room in one corner of the Arkadi Monastery in central Crete. The space is open to the elements, but you can see where the vaulted ceiling once began. At the far ...

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. For half an hour or so, as we headed up the steepest part of Crete’s Rouvas Gorge, the canyon’s walls closed in ...