0Ostria, Thalassa & Paplinou Beaches

Pap­lin­ou Beach is a beach on the south east coast a little to the east of Iera­petra. The west­ern end of the beach is for vis­it­ors and is offi­cially known as Thalassa after the beach bar loc­ated there (not to be con­fused with the resort near Chania), whilst the east­ern end is for people booked at the resort and is usu­ally referred to as Ostria beach. The beach is long and the water is excel­lent and there is plenty of off-road park­ing available.

The east­ern end of the beach has water­s­ports but these are asso­ci­ated with the resort and might not be avail­able to guests, I have nev­er asked so am not sure. The beach itself is free but you can use the facil­it­ies (pools, sun­beds, etc) if you spend €5 at the bar (price as of 2020). There are 2 break­wa­ters built a short way out into the sea that pro­tect the beach and help keep the water calm and warm. 

The beach has reas­on­able soft sand, although as with much of Crete is is coarse sand rather than fine golden sand. This is good for water qual­ity as the coars­er sand isn’t so eas­ily dis­turbed by cur­rents so the water is usu­ally very clear. The snor­kelling is quite good although as sands have shif­ted over the years and covered some of the nat­ur­al rock out­crops the amount of sea life has reduced but the last 2–3 years have seen the start of a recov­ery. In addi­tion to numer­ous fish I have seen eels, octopus, and a lion­fish once.

The pools are quite good although as they are unheated when it is windy they can get quite cool, even in the middle of sum­mer. There is a baby pool that is only around 2ft (60cm) deep with a giant struc­ture in the middle with slides com­ing from it that young chil­dren seem to love, although for the young­er ones you will of course have to super­vise. Note that whilst there are staff present there don’t appear to be any expli­cit lifeguards.

Ostria Beach resort is only 10–15 minutes drive from Iera­petra, around 40 minutes from Makrys Gia­los, or 30 minutes from Myr­tos. When approach­ing from the west look for the sign and entrance for the resort, when approach­ing from the east go past the main sign and then take the next entrance.

Paplinou / Thalassa / Ostria Beach photo gallery