people do Samaria seriously by gettinga us- either service or tour- from Chania before sparrowfart, walk down, get the boat back to the appropriate place, where they get the service or tour bus back to Chania.

I think I could count the use of the word Loutro on here on the fingers of one hand.

the search engine picks it up in a number fewer than the fingers of two hands....

Dear Cpi - we did this about 20 years ago so things might have changed a bit, but we had a good time starting off in Heraklion - Knossos is a must - then catching buses along the coast til we ended up in C/hania, which is the most interesting town [including a red-light district down by the port which we walked through very quickly]. Then we "did" the Samarian gorge [and you do have to get up early to do it in one day and walk quickly too] and hired a car to drive back across the island on the road which according to our map ran across the south of the island from west to east - does anyone know if they've finished it yet? If not, make sure you've got a jeep if you fancy this option.
This was a great trip, with plenty of exploring off the beaten track - there are great sights like Malia which seemed very undervisited, and I'd love to go back.