The village of Georgioupoli or Georgioupolis in Crete

Georgioupoli lies on the northern coast of Crete, about 35km away from Chania and 20 km from Rethimnon. It is a coastal village with a very large beach. There are several roades leading from the coastal higway to Georgioupoli and one of them is over a 4 kilometers long road leading through some very pretty scenery to the bay of Almiros. You drive through a green landscape with lots of trees and some houses, and there are nice views of the mountains. A part of the drive is graced with large eucalyptis trees on both sides of the road.

Georgioupoli is built on the delta of the river Almiros, which floats in from lake Kournas, the only lake in Crete. It used to be a swamp area untill the late 19th century, and the place was avoided because of fear of malaria. The swamps were made dry, trees were planted and a couple of bridges were made to cross the river (which divides the beach in two). Now there are plenty of hotels and pensions, a nice village square with taverna's, some souvenir shops and supermarkets, and two churches. One of them is a cute little white church that is set on a pier in the water, the Agios Nikolaos church. You can walk to this church and burn a candle if you like. The sand beach stretches on for ever and ever (it's 10 kilometers long). Some parts have beach chairs, other parts don't, but the whole stretch is good. There's plenty of space and sand for everybody. Compared to some other villages on the north coast of Crete it's rather quiet and relaxed. It's a secretly hidden gem on the heavily build on this part of the coastline.

You will not see highrise buildings or heavy traffic in Georgioupoli. You might bump into the miniature tourist tram though, which takes you on a tour of the area. But don't worry: it's not going very fast. Most of the guest appeared to be well educated English people between the ages of 30 and 60, and not the noisy kind. There's a hotel on the beach with special facilities for disabled people as well.