On my Facebook ‘Books’ page I recently posted a photo taken at a tiny little bay called Tholos which is only accessible by a lane that runs down from the village of Kavousi, here in Lasithi. I mentioned that I’d soon post the rest here on the blog, so here they are. Since moving here to south-eastern Crete almost five years ago, we’ve been struck by just how many little hideaways there are within easy driving distance of home. Lasithi’s only true tourist hotspots are Agios Nikolaos and Elounda, and the rest of the ‘county’ thrives more in agriculture than it does on tourism. There are a couple of small resorts too, like Sisi on the north coast, and Makry Gialos on the south coast about 20 km east of Ierapetra, but even these are small and not at all overcrowded. Sitia gets some holidaymakers, but these are primarily French. Sitia has its own airport, as you probably know, but road-wise it’s so far away from anywhere that it has the effect of keeping tourism in check at a sensible level, I’m rather glad to say.

What’s lovely about Tholos is the fact that it’s just far enough away from anywhere not to get too commercialised, and yet there is a beach restaurant down there which is open during the season for those intrepid enough to find it. There is a small jetty at one end of the beach where one or two boats tie up, and the beach itself is mainly yellow sand and very shallow for safe bathing. At this time of the year it’s a paradise, although there are some umbrellas and sunbeds down there during the season (we saw them stacked up). By the looks of what we saw when strolling along the beach on Friday April 5th during the late morning, I’d still say that it’s never overcrowded, even in high summer.

When we reached the harbour end, a Greek chap of probably around seventy years of age approached us to engage us in a friendly conversation. His name was George and, like so many Greeks of his generation, he’d spent many years away from his ‘katagogi‘ [place of origin] owing to his having been a policeman in both Athens and Heraklion for the length of his working career. He’d recently retired and, since he [of course] still had a house in Kavousi, he’d recently returned home to enjoy his golden years. When he was young, he told us that the hills around Tholos Bay had been rich with wheat, barley and potato cultivation, all of which was now gone. “Nowhere stays the same, I suppose,” he said with a copious helping of melancholy in his voice. As we stood on the concrete jetty and looked across the bay toward the steeply sloping mountain on the other side, he told as about the new villas that had been built there. Fortunately, the regulations in those parts stipulate that a new build has to have a pretty generous parcel of land around it, to avoid overdevelopment. He did tell us how much land each new house had to have, but I can’t remember the exact figure now, but it’s measured in ‘stremmata,’ of course.

“You see those villas there,” he said, pointing at some rather swish-looking buildings low on the hillside, within easy walking distance of the sea, “they’re built for Germans, Scandinavians, etc., who only come here for their holidays.”

Above: The villas that our friend was referring to are those to the right of the bay, whereas the harbour is out-of-shot to the left. OK, so the existence of these buildings testifies to the fact that tourists have indeed discovered Tholos, but it’s still fairly evident that the whole thing is as yet still low key. As we bade George ‘kali syne’heia,’ he went his way to a pickup truck that was waiting for him, leaving us with a faint sense of sadness that he knew that his beloved home village and bay, although still lovely, was now nothing like it had been in his childhood years. It’s the same story the world over, though, right? All in all, though, we rather liked the place and the fact that it’s another beauty spot that’s yet to be overrun by mass tourism, one of many that we’re fortunate to have dotted around the county that we are so blessed to be living in.

Here are the rest of the photos from Tholos…

After leaving Tholos, we drove back to Pachia Ammos for a coffee in the rather cozy little coffee bar called ‘Take a Break.’ It’s almost exactly opposite the souvlaki house (a glorified wooden hut) that was converted into a petrol station for one of the episodes of the excellent TV series ‘Cartes Postale from Greece,’ which is really well worth watching if you haven’t yet seen it. The ‘Take a Break’ is the ideal spot for passing truck drivers and sales reps to stop by for a coffee because, not only is it right beside the busy Sitia-Heraklion road, but it’s right across from a large parking area that backs onto the beach. The photos below were taken at the ‘Take a Break’…

In the first of those two you can just make out the Souvlaki house between the two white cars across the road. In ‘Cartes Postales’ that Souvlaki House became a petrol station, outside of which the main character caught the bus a few times. I’ve mentioned this before, but we actually drove past the spot while they were filming and, in the episode in question, our car can be seen fleetingly as it passes on the road during one of the scenes at the petrol station.

We’re trying to make room for more brief excursions this year, during which we’ll seek out those out-of-the-way places that dot the area around Ierapetra. As and when we do, I’ll of course snap away and share the images on future posts. It’s so easy to get up in the morning, tidy the house, make the bed, wash up the breakfast things and then get busy either in the house or garden and, before we know it, another day, indeed series of days, has passed and we haven’t been anywhere. I’m not complaining, because it’s a nice life, but when there are so many worthwhile places to visit, we do feel that we ought to make more of an effort now and then.

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