0Balos Lagünü

Balos Lago­on is one of the most famed beac­hes on Cre­te with it’s west coast loca­ti­on offe­ring gre­at sun­sets. It is loca­ted off the penin­su­la at the north west of the Island a litt­le over an hour from Cha­nia near the Gram­vo­usa islands which often featu­re on boat trips to Balos.

var 2 Balos'a ulaşmanın yolları. One opti­on is dri­ving which inc­lu­des a long dri­ve on unpa­ved road and in peak season par­king a long way from the beach with a 30 ulaşmak için dakika kadar yürüyün. If you pre­fer the water to the land you can take a boat trip from Kis­sa­mos which give you 3 hours at the lago­on and 2 hours at Gram­vo­usa island with costs aro­und €25 per per­son. The 2 main ope­ra­tors are Balos Tra­vel ve Cre­tan Daily Cruises

Balos has been some­w­hat a vic­tim of its own suc­cess with so many visi­tors in peak season that it is much har­der to recom­mend than it used to be. If you dri­ve you can set off early eno­ugh to beat the boats, or alter­na­ti­vely you can stay at the end after many peop­le have gone, but you will then get back to whe­re­ver you are sta­ying quite late. Othe­r­wi­se, if you go during the main part of the day then expect the­re to be hor­des of peop­le in both coach trips and on seve­ral lar­ge fer­ri­es. When I last dro­ve in August I sta­yed until after sun­set to take a pho­to to show the num­ber of peop­le still pre­sent after dark!

To get to and from the beach you will need to talk a dirt track that takes aro­und 20 minu­tes each way, plus any time wal­king to the start of the path from whe­re­ver you mana­ge to park which it likely to add anot­her 10–15 minu­tes. The road up the penin­su­la is unsur­fa­ced and so makes for slow dri­ving. As a result the dri­ve from Kis­sa­mos takes aro­und 40 minu­tes with the last 30 minu­tes of this being the 5 kilometrelerce toprak yol. Dri­ving from Cha­nia takes an ext­ra 30 minu­tes, so a litt­le over an hour in total.

Plajın kendisi güzel, lar­ge, ve kumlu, alt­ho­ugh the lago­on is very shal­low and has quite murky water that isn­’t espe­ci­ally appe­aling to swim in. For­tu­na­tely the­re is plenty of sea ava­ilab­le to swim in which is very ple­asant. Alt­ho­ugh the­re are lots of bre­ach umb­rel­las and sun­beds the­re is still plenty of empty sand for tho­se who pre­fer to take the­ir own kit.

If you take the boat trip you will miss out on the sun­set but you are likely to get a visit to Ime­ri Gram­vo­usa, which is home to a Vene­ti­an fort­ress that has been used be Cre­tan inde­pen­den­ce figh­ters on a num­ber of occa­si­ons (inde­pen­den­ce from the Otto­mans, and the Ger­mans, not the Gre­eks I sho­uld say!). Ime­ri Gram­vo­usa also has a beach, that is qui­eter than Balos as only boat trip­pers can reach it.

The­re is a “beach bar” at Balos which pro­vi­des basic snacks and drinks. The­re are also some basic toilet faci­li­ti­es. The pri­ces are not too bad for a cap­ti­ve mar­ket with items like pring­les, Su, san­d­wic­hes, tea and cof­fee ran­ging from €1 to €4 in 2019.

Balos Galerisi

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