Itanos Beach

On the second day that we were in Crete we planned to drive to Sitia to experience to open air market. Unfortunately, it rained that morning, and we were not really sure where exactly it was, so we slept in and lazed on our front patio, reading to each other. Amalia arrived later in the afternoon and laughed at us.

“Oh, that’s so cute,” she said to us as if she was describing the scene to us, “She’s reading to him and he’s laughing!”

We laughed along with Amalia for awhile; then she suggested that we go the beach. This was our second day and she suggested we drive to Vai. On the map of Crete, it looks like Vai is fairly far away, but it turned out that it was only a 10 minute drive north so we packed up the car with wine and food and left to discover our second beach.

Vai is a very popular beach because it is one of the few sand beaches in East Crete. We drove up the winding road, through palm trees and olive groves to a very beautiful beach; the shore was lined with chairs and relatively filled with people. At most beaches we went to there was no one or maybe one other couple there. Vai was filled with families, parents taking pictures of kids playing in the water, and couples cuddling on the provided beach chairs.

Dan and I were a bit overwhelmed by all of the people, (we had only talked to Amalia and Yorgo in the past two days), and so we walked the length of the beach and climbed up onto the rocks. It was late afternoon and the sea looked so beautiful we climbed back down (after taking lots of pictures) and rested in the sand. I wanted to swim and I did not have my bathing suit, but after looking around and realizing that most people had left the beach, I stripped down to my underwear and jumped in. The water was glorious and I swam for a little while.

Amalia had mentioned that Vai was pretty nice, but that the beach just a little further down the road was even nicer. After drying off a bit, we packed up our wine and food and drove down to Itanos. Itanos was the most beautiful of all beaches we went to. We were alone as we explored the beach and climbed onto the rocks. We finished our wine and were so smitten with the air, the sea, the rocks, we wrote a letter to Crete, rolled it into the empty wine bottle and tipsily threw it into the sea. We vowed we would come back to Itanos every day. We scrambled through 3000 year old ruins, mapped out our house, and imagined our life in a different time and place.


As we were leaving we discovered a little seating area some surfers or hikers had devised. Under a twisted beach tree were benches built into a stone wall, a refrigerator, filled with condiments and beer, and a round table. It was the perfect place to sit and contemplate the sea and the ruins on the rocks above. We never wanted to leave. That evening we drank Ouzo and dined with Amalia and Yorgo at his cousin’s restaurant in town. I ate rabbit in a lemon sauce and Dan had veal stew. Delicious.