Koutalas beach

By John Freedman Posted February 6, 2021

We have had some wild weather on Crete over the last month or so. Crazy winds, driving, horizontal rain, landslides, sleet and even snow blowing down to sea level from the Super White Mountains (at least for a few minutes). Yesterday the temperature took a jump, the sun came out to cradle us, and my wife Oksana and I jumped in the car to take in some sights. Since we got a bit of a late start we stayed more or less close to Chania, where we live, and trained our trusty Prius out toward Apokoronas (stress on the middle O), a seaside, mountainous, valley-filled district in the east of the Chania Prefecture. There are some wonderfully quaint villages there and some wild, untamed nature. We harbor a soft spot in our hearts for one particular, tiny and rather funky beach out beyond the village of Plaka and Kokkino Chorio (Red Village). It is called Koutalas (not to be confused with Kalathas on Akrotiri) and recently it's become a bit easier to find because someone put up a very nice, professional-looking sign right where you have to turn off a lonely road onto an even lonelier, narrow cemented car-path. Out this way there are a few scattered homes, but the vast amount of land is set aside for grazing goats - including the middle of the road, if that's where they want to be. You rarely come out here without seeing a family or two of goats pass you by. We encountered two groups coming and going yesterday. The earth out here is rocky and grassy, with some low-lying shrubs and only the very occasional tree. Koutalas beach is probably only about 30 feet across (10 meters maybe?). It's quite rocky, both the beach and the seabed. It lies in the middle of a gorge that winds out of the nearby mountains and stretches well out to sea. A steep cement driveway takes you down from the road above right to the beach's edge. Some people drive down - I wouldn't do that without a four-wheel drive, or until I lose 20 or 30 pounds... I park up on top and walk down. For some reason the authorities built a spartan lean-to for shade in 2005. It stands forlornly on the left side of the beach, and, other than the sign asking you to take your (damn) trash with you when you leave, there aren't many signs of human interference down here. There is a very nice, wide walkway cut into the left-hand cliff, which allows you to walk quite a ways out with very little difficulty. Those who are more intrepid and enjoy rock-climbing, as opposed to rock-hopping, can go out much further. We didn't go swimming yesterday, of course, otherwise we would have come out looking like popsicles. But we have gone swimming here in the summer, and it's a great swim. There are lots of little caves and inlets fairly close in and bigger ones as you get out to the open Sea of Crete. Keep in mind you'll want your sea slippers, however, it really is very rocky. There's a lot of geology going on and, if I'm not mistaken, you will come across fossils with some regularity - leaves, bush trunks and the like. A few kilometers from here - although to get there you have to take another road - is the now famed Elephant Cave which was discovered just 20 years ago. It's a cave you can get to only by swimming underwater, and when paleontologists came to check it out they found skeletons of a never-before-known species of elephants that lived here some 15 million years ago. Look that up on the net, it's pretty interesting. But that's an aside. My point today is that this tiny little beach, in this virtually ignored corner of the world, is the ideal place for anyone who wants to leave time and civilization behind. It's not like no one ever comes out here, but you'll probably cross paths with more goats than humans. I said "hi" to a fisherman and a photographer yesterday, but they were as intent on slipping past me as quickly as the goats were. I do understand them well. Koutalas is about 40 minutes east of Chania by car when you know where you're going. Google it the first time you do it, otherwise it will take you a lot longer. On your way back - at least in season - there are some great tavernas and restaurants in Plaka, Almyrida, Kalyves and Kalami. This time of year, however, places are looking like the old ghost towns I grew up around in California, only without the tumbleweed.

All photos and text © copyright 2022 by John Freedman. If you wish to use either text or photos, I will almost surely grant permission as long as you do the courtesy of asking.