Almyrida Is A Beach Resort in Crete
It’s Perfect For Young Children With Shallow Sandy Beaches
Oct 23, 2008
The beach in front of the town is an EU Blue Flag Beach. This means the water quality, toilets and lifeguards meet EU standards. It is not hard to see why. The clear blue water allows bathers to watch the little fishes investigating their feet. Non swimmers can wade out gradually, sure the sandy bottom only slopes gently. Only near the central jetty, where the beach bars fill the beach would swimmers feel unsafe.
Around to the east the small harbor is home to a few small fishing boats and catamarans which belong to the village sailing school. The charming notice erected by the village under the trees asks visitors to respect the beach and the trees, putting people on their best behavior.
Places to Stay, Eat and Drink
There is a wide choice of bars and restaurants to sit over a late coffee or an early cold beer and watch the beginners on their windsurfers learning how to combine the effects of wind and gravity. Eating out every night for a week just might mean a visitor would need to eat in one taverna twice, no real hardship. The village has sufficient shops to enable self caterers in one of the many villas in the area to eat well and in typical Cretan style. The Almyrida Beach Hotel is a low rise stretching back from the beach alongside the dried up river which takes the winter rains from the mountains. There is also lots of accommodation available in the traditional Greek rooms. There is a baker, two small supermarkets, a bottle shop and a shop selling “sea things” where visitors can buy all those extras for a beach holiday they have forgotten to bring.
Almyrida is an easy 2 Hours drive along with the North Coast’s National Road to Irakleio (Heracklion) airport but most visitors would prefer the one-hour drive from Hania (Chania) airport on the Akrotiri peninsular.
This is not a resort for young people, not a place where frantic beach parties and loud discos are the norm. It is a resort aimed firmly at families and older people who appreciate good scenery and good food. The few bars which overlook the bay do not seem out of place however. They are places for all ages to enjoy a drink at the end of the day.
What visitors feel in these rural parts of Crete is they are really visitors and not just tourists. The people seemed genuinely pleased to see visitors and to share their village for a short time with their guests.
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