East Crete: Agios Nikolaos, Elounda and the Island of Spinalonga

East of Heraklion the package-holiday strip thins out, the hills turn silver with olives, and Crete settles into a slower rhythm around the Gulf of Mirabello. This is the corner of the island for people who want their swimming followed by a proper lunch and a story, and the story here is a big one: Spinalonga, the fortress island that was Europe's last leper colony.

Agios Nikolaos

The hub of the east is a real working town wrapped around a small lake that the locals will tell you is bottomless. Cafes ring the lake, a short canal connects it to the harbour, and the town beaches are good enough that you never need to drive. It is about an hour from Heraklion Airport on a road that climbs through two mountain passes and drops you into the gulf with a view that makes the whole plane ride worthwhile.

Elounda and Plaka

Ten minutes north, Elounda has quietly become the address of Greece's most expensive resort hotels, but the village itself stays unpretentious: a working fishing harbour, a line of tavernas on the water, salt flats where flamingos stop in spring. Further along, the hamlet of Plaka faces Spinalonga across a few hundred metres of water, and its pebble beach has one of the clearest swimming spots on the coast. A transfer from the airport to Elounda takes a little over an hour.

Spinalonga

Boats cross to the island from Elounda, Plaka and Agios Nikolaos all day in season. The Venetians fortified the rock in the 16th century, the Ottomans took it, and from 1903 to 1957 Greece used it as a leprosy hospital, a history Victoria Hislop's novel The Island carried around the world. Walking the perimeter path past the restored street, the church and the small cemetery takes about an hour and stays with you considerably longer. Go at opening time or late afternoon; midday boats run full.

Beyond the gulf

Push twenty minutes south and Voulisma beach offers Caribbean-coloured water below the road to Sitia. Keep going and you reach Mochlos, a one-taverna fishing village opposite a Minoan islet, and eventually Vai's palm forest at the island's tip. The east rewards a hire car for a day or two, but every base along the gulf works fine without one.

If you are still choosing where to stay on the island, compare areas and fixed transfer prices on our destinations page, or read the Knossos and Heraklion guide for the culture stop most east-bound travellers make on the way.