Balos Lagoon

At the far north-western corner of Crete, the Gramvousa peninsula runs out into the sea as a bare, rocky finger, and at its tip the land nearly touches the offshore islet of Cape Tigani. Between them lies Balos, a shallow lagoon that the sea fills and empties across a sand bar, so that the water shifts from pale milky turquoise over the sand to deep blue where the bottom drops away. Tigani, whose name means "frying pan" in Greek, rises from the lagoon as a rounded rock joined to the shore by that thin strip of sand.

The colours are what people remember: white sand shot through with a pinkish tinge from crushed shells, water shallow enough to wade across wide stretches, and the grey-brown limestone slopes of the peninsula, scrubby and treeless, closing the view on three sides. The best way to see its shape is from the path that descends from the ridge above, where the whole lagoon opens below like a map. The peninsula belongs to a protected natural area, and the landscape has been spared building of any kind.

Just offshore stands Imeri Gramvousa, an island crowned by a Venetian fortress built between 1579 and 1584. It remained a Venetian stronghold through later wars and passed to Greek insurgents in 1825 during the War of Independence; besieged and cut off, they turned to piracy, and for a few years the island was notorious as a pirates' nest across the eastern Mediterranean. North of Balos are the scant remains of Agnion, a small ancient town with a sanctuary of Apollo.

Two very different arrivals shape the visit. From the sea, boats round the cape and anchor in the shallows, usually after a stop at Imeri Gramvousa to climb to the fortress. From the land, a gravel road leads along the peninsula to a car park high above the lagoon, and the last stretch is on foot down a steep, unshaded path; the walk back up in the afternoon heat is the price of arriving on one's own schedule.

Getting there

Balos lies at the tip of the Gramvousa peninsula, about 41 km west of Chania by air line; Chania International Airport (CHQ) is about 51 km away. In season, daily boats from the port of Kissamos take about an hour and usually call at Imeri Gramvousa on the way. By car, the paved road ends at the village of Kaliviani; from there an unpaved road of about 10 km, leads to a car park above the lagoon, followed by a walk of roughly 1.5 km down a rocky path.