Crete tourist guide

Some topics come back like a boomerang from time to time. One of them is limiting the number of tourists on the two most crowded Cretan beaches: Balos and Elafonissi. Of course, this is not a groundless idea, because these places have been struggling with a strong phenomenon of overtourism for several years. This time, the introduction of paid tickets to these places was proposed by the Association of Hotel Owners of Chania Prefecture. They decided that in this way it would be possible to control the number of people visiting these two places.

In recent days, Greek authorities have updated the rules for traveling by ferry between the mainland of Greece and the Greek islands and between the islands themselves. Depending on the direction of travel, however, there are slight differences in the documents accepted. So if you are planning this type of trip, the following list will be helpful for you. At least until the regulations change again :)

Everyone probably knows that Crete is a large island. When you come here for the first time, you will definitely not see all the interesting places, because the distance between individual attractions is in some cases quite a lot. Of course, there are tourists who do not plan to return to the same places, so during one stay on the island they want to see as much as possible. To these people, we recommend our articles such as Top 12 Crete and Top 20 beaches , which in a nutshell show the most famous places of Crete.

But there is also a large group of Crete admirers who have swallowed the mole-buckthorn and return to the island once again with the intention of getting to know the region in which they have accommodation more closely.

Therefore, today we are starting a series of what can be described as " interesting places nearby ... " in which we will show you thematically divided points of interest located in each of the Crete prefecture. These will be both well-known and popular places, but we will show you less typical suggestions, which in our opinion are also interesting. Of course, it is impossible to describe everything interesting on the island, so it was necessary to make a preliminary selection. So these will be our subjective types, but if you know other interesting places that you would like to recommend to others, just enter them in the comments, of course referring to the published category. As this topic grows larger, we will probably create a special space on our website where you will be able to easily find all the articles created within this series.

As the first topic, we chose interesting roads located throughout the Chania Prefecture . To make it easier to find the described places, we have also developed a google map with markers. The roads we have chosen for today's part are paved roads. We do not expect to describe the unpaved ones (possibly in a small amount), because when you rent cars at local rental companies, you know well that damage caused on such roads is not covered by insurance.

So far, 2.3 million foreign tourists have visited Greece during the current season. According to statistics, the largest group are tourists from Germany (412,000), but the biggest surprise was Polish tourists. As it turns out, the Polish market is more buoyant this year than in 2020. So far, 202,000 have come to Greece. Poles, and for comparison, in the whole of last year, a total of 295,000 came to Greece. tourists from Poland.

Kourtaliotiko Κουρταλιώτικο Gorge is one of the biggest natural attractions of the prefecture of Rethymno. It makes a colossal impression not only on people who will be here for the first time. The majestic high slopes of the gorge reach 600 meters. If you are lucky, you can spot huge wild birds flying high in the sky. Unfortunately, no photo or video can reflect the majesty of this gorge. When viewed live, it literally overwhelms with its impressive size. Kourtaliotiko is also known as a windy gorge. With strong gusts of wind, it's hard to get out of the car and stand on your feet.

In today's film by Giannis Psaroudakis, you will see this gorge not only from the perspective of the road, but also thanks to the shots from the drone, you will be able to look at it from above. Psaroudakis also descends to its bottom, where the Kourtaliotis River flows, creating very characteristic waterfalls in several places.

In recent days, the Cretan tourism industry has become increasingly concerned about the further fate of this year's tourist season. The number of new infections in Crete increased sharply last week, but there has also been a strong increase across the country. As reported last Sunday, the Prefecture of Rethymno and Heraklion were among the top five Greek regions with the highest number of Covid-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

We have written more than once on our website that Crete is a very windy place. All those who are regulars on the island can certainly confirm these words. However, there are places in Crete that the wind likes in a special way. One of them is certainly the town of Plakias , which, apart from its perfect beach, is famous for its extremely strong winds. Those blowing from the north from the Kotsifou and Kourtaliotiko ravines are particularly annoying and strong.

To confirm this thesis, we refer to today's data that have been collected by the Athens National Observatory - meteo.gr. According to the results of observations carried out by this institution in Plakias, gusts of wind were recorded today, the speed of which reached even 106 km / h.

Plakias in windy weather