Balos Lagoon

Beaches & CovesCrete, Chania,Greece

A sandbar between Crete and a rocky cape holding water barely thirty centimetres deep, its beach tinted pink by shells the waves have ground down.

September·Peaking now

Sep–Oct

The sea still holds around 25°C in September and the boats run to 31 October, while Eleonora's falcons reach their peak overhead, hunting songbirds crossing to Africa; after mid-September the crowds thin and the sandbar empties early.

Year-round The sandbar, the shell-pink sand and the Venetian castle on Imeri Gramvousa stand year-round, reachable overland by the Kaliviani track; the sea's warmth, the day-boats and the falcons come and go with the season.

Balos is a sandbar between the northwest tip of Crete and the rocky cape of Tigani, and the water it holds is barely thirty centimetres deep. It lies over pale sand all day and warms to something like bath temperature, and you can wade a long way out with the sea still below your knees. The colour changes from white to green to turquoise under your own feet, and the pink is not in every grain. It comes from shells the waves have ground down into the white sand, so it gathers in patches and streaks, strongest where a wave has just pulled back. None of the shape shows from down there. The footpath from the ridge keeps the lagoon behind the slope for twenty minutes. Then one bend gives you all of it: the bar, the ring of shallow water, the cape, and the castle on the islet beyond. The day boats tie up at that islet, Imeri Gramvousa, and a steep stony path climbs to the Venetian walls on its summit. The small harbour below them was a pirate base. Three or four hundred Cretan rebels seized the fort in 1825 and held it for two years, and since they could not feed themselves under siege they raided Aegean shipping instead. They built a school up there, and a church to Panagia i Kleftrina — Our Lady of the thieves. A British and French fleet burned their ships in 1828. A cargo ship still lies half sunk in the bay where the boats moor, aground since a January morning in 1968 when its anchor chain snapped, and nobody ever took it away. The cliffs here keep their own schedule. Eleonora's falcon breeds later than any other bird of prey in Europe, laying only in late July. The chicks hatch in August and September, exactly as millions of songbirds funnel south across the Mediterranean, and the falcons take them out of the air over the sea. When the young can fly, the whole colony crosses the length of Africa to winter in Madagascar.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The famous panorama belongs to the road route — boat passengers land on the sand and never see it, because it only opens from the path down the ridge, high above the sandbar.
The colour peaks exactly when the crowds do — the gradient is sharpest with the sun overhead, which is also when the boats are in; early and late the lagoon is emptier but flatter.
Most rental contracts exclude the dirt road — check yours before driving the track down from Kaliviani, and remember that the walk back up from the beach is the hard half.
Swim on the open-sea side of the sandbar — the middle of the lagoon is warm but soft and muddy underfoot, and in many places it is too shallow to float in.
There is no shade and almost nothing on site — bring water, a hat and food, because the beach has no real facilities and the sun on the exposed sand is relentless.

Things to do

1
Wade out across the ankle-deep lagoon
Over much of the sandbar the sea barely covers your ankles, and it lies over pale sand all day, so it warms to something like bath temperature. You can walk a long way out with the water still below your knees, watching the colour change from white to green to turquoise under your own feet.
2
Find the pink in the sand
The rose tint is not in every grain. It comes from shell fragments the waves have ground down and mixed into the white sand, so it gathers in patches and streaks rather than colouring the whole beach. Look for it where a wave has just pulled back and the wet sand deepens in tone.
3
Meet the lagoon at the last bend of the path
For the first twenty minutes the footpath down from the ridge keeps the lagoon hidden behind the slope. Then you round one bend and the whole thing is in front of you at once: the sandbar, the ring of shallow water, Cape Tigani and the castle on the islet beyond. Stop there before you descend — from the beach itself you never see the shape of it.
4
Climb to the pirates' fortress on Imeri Gramvousa
The day boats tie up at the islet, and a steep, stony path climbs to the Venetian walls on the summit. From the ramparts you look back across the lagoon on one side and down on the small harbour where the besieged Cretans kept their pirate fleet in the 1820s.
5
Stay after the day boats have gone
In the afternoon the boats collect the crowds and turn back for Kissamos, and the sandbar belongs to whoever walked in. The low sun pulls the gold out of the sand, the shallow water goes glassy, and the noise of the day drains away behind the last wake.

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Nearby

49 km