I can't believe this is my tenth day of vacation! It doesn't feel like it. I know there are some people who don't like being away from home for more than 7-10 days. Not me!!!! I could totally continue on for weeks. I feel like time has flown by and I'm sad to go home next weekend. Sigh.
Today was a beautiful day. Woke up at 6:30 am for breakfast at the hotel and then shot down to Elafonissi Beach, which is in the southwestern part of Crete. The drive down is about 1.5-2 hrs, depending on the route you take and traffic. Luckily it's the end of the season so not too much traffic. There appears to be different ways to get down there and Google maps seemed to take us the most 'safe' way. I read about hairpin turns and no guard rails on narrow roads. While we did encounter this, the route we were on seemed to only have 15% of this. Otherwise I thought the drive down was fine though very windy.
We arrived close to 11 am and there was plenty of parking. When you walk in, there's like three main areas where you can choose your lounge chairs with umbrellas. They charge 8 euros per umbrella and two chairs total. There's also some food and bathroom facilities (gotta pay 50 cents euros to get on) but probably better to bring your own food if you can. Choices are limited.
Anyway I thought Lindos Beach in a Rhodes was nice but this totally took the cake. I loved it here!!!! You're surrounded by beaches and water all around since this area is kind of shaped like an island. As you walk in, towards the left is the seaside where water is more rough (but not really). To the right is where it's reeeally calm because it's more enclosed.
The calm side, where I frolicked much of the day
It's really hard to capture the scope of this place. You can wade out very far out and still be in knee or hip deep only. Even though we came on the first Sunday of October, it was still warm enough to spend the day swimming in the water. Plenty of fish swimming around too. Best to bring swim googles to really enjoy this place.
Can't get enough of this
Why would you not want to come here??
Elafonissi is also known as pink sand beach. You can see flecks of this at the shoreline of the sand. It's subtle but there.
Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives. See the slight pink in the shoreline?
Wish we could stay longer but left at 3 pm for the drive back.
Tiny tunnel goes one way at a time
I hung out at the hotel pool a bit before showering and heading out to dinner. Dinner was unremarkable so won't comment on it. But I love walking around the alleyways of Chania at night. Very lively and lots of shops and people watching!
Pool at Samaria Hotel