Crete Holidays and Crete Beaches Guide.

The Island of Crete has great food, is wonderful for walking and sightseeing so a lovely scenic choice to pick for a Holiday in Greece.

We decided to go on holiday to Crete perhaps somewhat wary of going to such a large island since we normally prefer the smaller Greek Islands such as Samos or Skiathos, however actually getting to and finding accommodation in early April on many Greek Islands is somewhat difficult since many are closed. Although we had a two weeks for our Crete Holiday and concentrated on the island's Western side, in fact even this was too large an area to get to know very well in such a short time. Crete's gorges and ravines are spectacular (we took loads of photos during our holiday) and in fact we thought Crete had some of the best scenery we have ever walked, hiked, photographed and/or driven through.

As it seems is always the case on Greek Islands, the tavernas all offered good and plentiful food at very reasonable prices - even lots of different vegetables were on the menu, and of course the normal Greek Island type of friendliness was ever present. We did find the beaches we came across to be a little disappointing because we like small cove type beaches - however it is fair to say that there is a massive beach (12km) along Rethymnon (near where we were staying) and also April is not exactly the best time of year to judge any beaches.
The Crete beach we used mostly (firstly because it was just a small beach which we like rather than big beaches and secondly as it was ok for naturist sunbathing and swimming) was located at Damioni. Damioni Beach is reached from Rethimnon by heading due south across the narrow part of the island. Actually this was also the only naturist beach we could find in the Western area in fact though we were on Crete really for walking and hiking so we did not try too hard to find other Crete naturist beaches. The picture on the above right is of Falasarna Beach Sheep on their way for a bit of sunbathing.

Crete Beaches Guide.

Since we were on the Island very early in the year we did not go to that many Crete beaches - weather being not that fabulous for beach days, although of course pretty good for us walkers. There are quite a few images of Crete's Palm Beach - this beach is really picturesque and sort of unusual - certainly one to try and visit.
There are of course beaches everywhere on the island both large and small with quite a few sandy ones. Being topless is generally OK as is generally the case on the Greek Islands but as far as naturist beaches are concerned we did not particularly look too hard to find any. There were so many people not around at the time of our holiday that just about anywhere could be used by naturists but this obviously changes as the holiday season progresses. We did twice visit Damioni beach which is naturist - this is a quite small Crete beach but well protected from the wind on three sides and with the sun shining was pretty good to be on - one imagines that this beach roasts during the summer months though. Please note - there are no nude photographs on our site - just photos of Crete Beaches.

The first five photos are of Palm Beach, Crete

These are photos of Damioni Beach, Crete - the beach is situated in a rocky small cove and is as small as the photo suggests and because it is favoured by naturists does tend to fill up quite quickly.
Even on our early holiday we found the beach got quite hot so presumably it scorches once you get into the Summer. There are no facilities on the beach.

The first two beaches on the left are Falasarna Beach and the two Crete beaches on the right are of Matala Beach

Whilst on holiday on Crete we were unable to take the walk through the Samaria Gorge because of weather (sea) conditions which was a disappointment but we did walk the Prassanos Gorge - seemingly not many people walk this rugged and spectacular gorge - its well worth the effort but you need to ensure weather conditions are ok i.e. no heavy rain either imminent or having occurred in the previous couple of days since it could be quite dangerous. We also hiked through the Imbros Gorge - this is well used and a very easy walk i.e. not difficult at all especially compard with the Prassonos Gorge mentioned above.The photo on the right is Palm Beach - a really unusual and scenic spot - we went there on a hiking trip which is described via our Crete Walks pages link further below.

Crete - Rethymno. Rethymno is fairly typical of the larger Greek island towns, with the usual traffic chaos and lack of road signs etc. It's long promenade and the harbour are fine to wander around and the inner harbour is saturated with tavernas and bars - mostly used by tourists. The older part of the town is more interesting to look around - also of course the fortress is easy walking and not hard to spot as it dominates the town and can be seen from miles away. You can walk to the fortress from the inner harbour, just follow the coast road round and up until you see the entrance.

It does not cost very much to go into the fortress and once in there are plenty of bits to see and photograph - also you get pretty good views of the town below. We stayed about 4kms outside of Rethymnon at a place called Platanias, and found the tavernas here much better than those in Rethymnon, both for food quality and quantity as well as prices and also the friendliness of the taverna staff / owners. If you travel west from Rethymnon you follow alongside almost constant sandy beaches until you get to the small fishing village of Georgioupoli. The causeway shown in our picture goes out 10 miles into the sea (only kidding), however walk along this causeway to visit the small church at the end and get views of Georgioupoli's small beach and harbour either side. There is a very large village square and we found this very pleasant for a stop and a coffee.
Inland from Georgioupoli you find Crete's only freshwater lake at Kournas - very popular even in April with coach trips and tours etc. You cannot walk right round the lake but if you park near where the paddle boats were for hire, you can go anti-clockwise round the lake and get to the hills seen the other side - a track will take you up into the hills so far before it becomes a very very steep path which will allow you to continue up over the hills to Alikampos (a climb of 1650 feet).
We stopped off at Kolimbari, a small fishing village to the west of Chania and had a look round. We also took a quite narrow road up into the mountains passing the Moni Gonia and then made a circular drive round and back to Kolimbari - well worthwhile for the views and scenery.

An interesting drive to try whilst on holiday on Crete is to go up to Polirinia. Start off by leaving the main road just before entering Kissamou - the small pot-holed road goes off to the left but is quite easy to spot. The road is quite narrow and wanders around as it makes it's way up to Polirinia. Once you get there you can park by the taverna - it's not worth or even very possible to drive right in as you will see once you have a walk around. Our trip was somewhat curtailed by a heavy hail and thunder storm (hence no pictures since it also went nearly pitch black and we thought our car was going off for a trip on it's own because of the high winds) generated by the nearby high hills so perhaps it's worth doing this on an uncloudy day.

On our way from Polirinia to our next intended stop off at Falasarna we wanted to have lunch but there seemed a distinct lack of tavernas - we eventually found only one which was at Platanos. Platanos's taverna can be found immediately after you turn right off the main road towards Falasarna.
Falasarna is located in a farming area, the tiny port only had a few fishing boats - however it does have a very long sandy beach. There are also considerable numbers of sheep wandering about everywhere (see the photo at the top of this page) plus a considerable amount of sheep poo to go with them.

Another Crete holiday Topic on our Site is about Crete Gorge walks and touring Crete

External Links on Crete
Crete by Greeka
West Crete Greece Travel Guide from Greek Island Postcards