Seitan Limania

Three narrow inlets bite into the rocky cliffs on the northeast coast of the Akrotiri peninsula, and at the head of one of them a dry ravine ends in a small cove of sand and pebbles. The rock walls rise almost vertically on both sides, and between them the sea lies in a slim tongue of deep green and turquoise. Seen from above, the cove looks less like a beach than a fjord in miniature carved into the Cretan coast.

The name Seitan Limania comes from Turkish and means the devil's harbours, a reminder that sailors once feared these inlets: when the wind rises the sea surges into the narrow channels, and the coves offered no safe anchorage. The place is also known as Stefanou beach, as Agios Rafael after a church at the mouth of the gorge, and as Agios Spyridon after an old chapel built into the rock. The ravine that feeds the cove is the gorge of Diplochachalo, and a steep path follows its side down from the plateau to the water.

Because it was hard to reach, the cove long remained little known outside the area, and only in recent years has it become a widely visited place. The Akrotiri peninsula, which juts into the sea east of Chania, is also home to the city's airport.

Chania, the nearest city, is the capital of the regional unit of the same name in western Crete. Its old quarter wraps around a harbour fortified by the Venetians, with a lighthouse at the end of the breakwater that dates from the nineteenth century in its present form. The waterfront of the old harbour remains the heart of the town.

Getting there

Seitan Limania lies on the Akrotiri peninsula about 2 km beyond the village of Chordaki; the nearest city, Chania, is about 16 km away in a straight line and a little over 20 km by road. The nearest airport is Chania International Airport (CHQ), about 4.5 km away on the same peninsula. A narrow road with hairpin bends leads to a parking area above the cove, from which a steep path descends the side of the gorge to the water.