Elafonisos  - 21st March 2006

Some places make me sad so I avoid them. Elafonisos is one of them. Located in the far south-west of Crete, Elafonisos used to be....paradise. You hardly ever saw anyone and the only thing you needed was drinking water and lemon to sprinkle on the fish you caught. Actually, not being much of a fisherman I used to take my friend Giorgos (and his spear). He'd go in the sea and would not come out until he had several kilos of fish. We'd make a fire, cook it and ate and ate and ate then collapsed under the stars. The next day, we'd repeat the same.
Nowadays you get a lot of day trippers who come with rented cars, tour buses and excursion boats from Paleochora. You get umbrellas and sunbeds, car parks, rubbish (thankfully that seems to be handled a little better recently), the smell of suncream....need I say more. So I avoid Elafonisos because I cannot stop thinking of how it was....quite a few years ago.

But today, I spent the whole day there. It's still winter...no tourists. In fact I was the only one on the island and didn't see another person on it for the 4 hours I was there. Just like the old days...unfortunately I forgot to bring Giorgos and his spear...and the lemon.

You can click on the picture to enlarge it