The island of Kolokitha, Elounda

The Kolokitha beach with its clear blue waters is located below the modern church of Agios Loukas, from where a short path to the sea begins. From the beach, to the north, the Byzantine church of Agios Fokas can be seen, built in honor of the Byzantine emperor Nikephoros Fokas for the liberation of Crete in 961 AD from the Arabs, which is worth walking to by the coastal path.

Access to Agios Loukas is via a dirt road that starts from the Alykes of Elounda with the windmills and passes through the Poros Canal, that is, the small canal that the French built in 1897 to allow boats to pass from the Elounda lagoon to the Mirabello Bay. Unfortunately, the beach has been very crowded in recent years due to its small size, as many tourist boats from Elounda have included it in their daily schedule, so it is best to avoid peak hours.

If you come to Kolokytha but want to be isolated, you can walk south, where there are the two small bays of Vagio with sand and stones and many tamarisk trees. Vagio does not reach the beauty of Kolokytha in any case, while in some years it collects a lot of algae. However, it is the right choice for nudists and those who want to avoid crowds, even during the tourist months. Next to the beach there are traces of a small limestone quarry

On the road leading from Elounda to the Kolokytha peninsula, at the point where the ancient city of Olous is believed to have been located, we come across the Venetian salt pans that operated until 1972. We observe dozens of tanks separated by walls in the shallow sea, where water from the Elounda lagoon was trapped from winter to April. Then, the water evaporated throughout the summer and in September the salt harvest began, which was stored in large warehouses (snows), traces of which can still be found around the lake. The Venetians built the salt pans in the 15th century with the aim of producing salt, which they exported to Europe and brought them great profit. When the Ottomans conquered Cyprus in 1570, where the Venetians were also exploiting other salt pans, the salt pans of Elounda were upgraded and larger tanks were built to cover the lost quantity. After the Ottoman conquest of Crete in 1669, the salt pans met the needs of the Turks. After the liberation of Crete, the salt of Elounda was under a Greek state monopoly and the salt pans operated until 1972. In recent years, there have been some moves to reopen them. Fishing is prohibited in the salt pan lake.

The Early Christian Basilica of Olontos (5th century) is located in the Poros area of ​​Elounda and was excavated in 1937 and 1960. It is a brilliant example of religious architecture of its time and is considered to have been the cathedral of ancient Olontos, the now submerged ancient city of Elounda. It belongs to the type of three-aisled wooden-roofed basilica with a semicircular apse to the east and an elongated narthex to the west. Olontos or Alyngos was probably the seat of a bishopric, as other basilicas have been identified in the vicinity.

The mosaic floor of the basilica is one of the finest surviving examples in Crete with geometric themes, representations of dolphins, peacocks and inscriptions of donors. A very important find is the inscription of the treaty of alliance between Olontia and Rhodia and an inscription from Roman times that are exhibited in the Archaeological Museum of Agios Nikolaos.

A short distance from Elounda, in the area of ​​Old Salt Lakes, there are few ruins of the ancient city of Olous (mainly in the sea) which was inhabited in an organized manner since the Minoan years. Olous or Olousta (otherwise Oloustas) was one of the most important hundred cities of ancient Crete, with a population of over 30,000 people. The administrative system of Oloustas was eunomy, a type of democracy. In Oloustas, Tall Zeus, Apollo and Britomartis were worshipped with a temple dedicated to her. It had its own coins. Svoronos mentions 11 different types. Most of them depict Artemis Britomartis on one side, and Zeus with an eagle, or a dolphin or a star on the other. The heyday of Oloustas continued during the first Byzantine period. This is evidenced by the Basilica of Poros with its magnificent mosaic, which can be visited today, and the Basilica of Kolokytha with its exquisite white marble.

Windmills are a characteristic mainly of Eastern Crete and much more of the prefecture of Lasithi and especially of the province of Merampelo, which for the most part lacks running water. In western Crete where there were more springs and rivers, watermills developed much more. Another reason is that the prefecture of Lasithi has for the most part strong winds which favor the existence of windmills. The mills were generally built on mountain slopes and in places that were exposed to the wind so that they turned with its force. The place where they were built and there were usually many together was called mylotope (the place of the mills). Contrary to the usual building of mills on mountain slopes, in Elounda there are three windmills next to the sea, at the point where the Elounda canal is located. All of them belong to the “Xetrocharis” type, which is completely circular and turns depending on the direction of the wind.

Vathi Bay is located about 2 miles northeast of the port of Elounda, on the northwest side of the Spinalonga peninsula and is separated from the rocky bay of Megalos Krios to the east by a narrow strip of land of about 400m. It is a sheltered bay with calm shallow waters and sand mixed with pebbles. The bay has a southeast orientation and beautiful views of the city of Elounda and the peaks of Oxa, Loutsi and Askokefala. All around there are remains of old farms that have now been abandoned. Next to the beach there is a boat platform, where excursion boats that transport tourists from Elounda tie up, while on land, tamarisks and carob trees offer their shade to visitors.

At the northern entrance to the Gulf of Kolokytha, near Elounda, is the church of Saint Phocas, built on the ruins of a Byzantine church that tradition has it that Nikephoros Phocas himself built when he came to Crete to liberate it from the Arab Saracens. Of course, the church is dedicated to the Bishop of Sinope, Phocas, the gardener who was martyred in 290 AD and is honored on July 23 by our church and not to the Byzantine emperor Nikephoros Phocas, as some mistakenly believe. Oral tradition, however, has it that Nikephoros Phocas, when he set sail with his fleet to liberate Crete, in 961 AD, made a vow to build a church at the first point where his ships would dock on our island. This happened in Bourouni, opposite Kolokytha, where he actually built a church at the location that is now called Nikephoros Fokas.

The restoration of the dilapidated building of that period began in 1983 with the care of the fundraising committee formed by the Parish of Elounda. On September 20, 1998, the inauguration of the church took place by the then Metropolitan of Petra Nektarios. In order for the Byzantine church to be restored from its foundations, the residents of Elounda and all the surrounding areas offered their contribution, while the contribution to the effort of Emmanuel Sfyrakis was decisive. At the site of the ruins, it should be said that before the restoration, there was a lamp that the locals lit and testified to the presence of a temple dedicated to Saint Foukas, as the residents called the Saint in the local dialect.

Built with local stone, skillfully carved in a dry and barren landscape, with a magnificent view of the sea, the temple is a unique element on this small peninsula. It should be noted that its original ruined building was one of the many temples built in the early Byzantine years in the wider area of ​​the ancient city of Olontas. Old residents of Elounda spoke of at least 45 ruined churches on the Spinalonga peninsula. Some were destroyed in raids, others by geological phenomena and others are said to be buried in the ground and therefore invisible to the human eye.

Very close to the beach of Kolokytha are the ruins of an Early Christian Basilica of the 5th-6th century, which was discovered in 1971 by archaeologist Manolis Borboudakis. It originally belonged to the type of three-aisled basilica with a wooden roof with a slightly protruding transept, a large semicircular apse to the east and an elongated narthex to the west, while in the 6th century it was converted into a domed roof with a dome. We see scattered pieces of marble from capitals, the pulpit and the gates, while the mosaic floors have been completely destroyed by the sea.

Some of the sculptures, such as a breastplate from the time of Emperor Justinian (527-565), were made in a workshop in Constantinople. Next to the temple there is a vaulted cistern, partially collapsed. The scattered broken pieces and the condition of the Basilica lead to the conclusion that it was violently destroyed after a raid by pirates or conquerors in the area. According to local oral tradition, the temple was dedicated to Saint Catherine or Saint Helen, but this has not been verified.