Tsoutsouros - Listis Beach - Petrokefali - Trafoulas Beach
Crete 2021
In the morning I go swimming. In the sea, besides me and one other boy, there is no one else. After breakfast and checking out of the hotel, we go to the nearest Listis beach - it is a beautiful bay with clear water. It seems to me that in this part of Crete, mostly Greeks vacation. They have old cars with old license plates without the European flag.
Path to Listis Beach
Two boys are jumping into the sea from a big rock, and I’m climbing up onto the rock too — it’s sooooo high and scary there. Usually I jump right away without thinking, but here I hesitate. Volchiy is swimming below me, checking whether it’s deep enough. I remember that boy with his grandfather and think — he was probably just as scared as I am now. It doesn’t matter how high it is. Everyone has their own height. I do jump after all :)
The second stone from the left — the one I jumped from
Today we live in the small village of Petrokefali, which has only a couple of houses, a tavern, and a little church. We have small cozy apartments and a huge terrace with a cool automatic awning.
Our accommodation in the village of Petrokefali. In the evening we’re heading to Trafoulas Bay. The road winds up the mountainside in switchbacks, and the last 5 km are a descent on a dirt road.
Dirt road to Trafoulas Bay
The car is covered in dust after such a road, Volchiy writes my name on the glass :)
It’s about a 20-minute walk from the parking lot to the bay through the canyon of the same name. First there’s a steep descent, and then we walk along the riverbed (I think there used to be a river here once :) We’re surrounded by high cliffs.
Descent to the bottom of the canyon
Trail through the canyon
The bay is very beautiful. There are amazing stones here, smooth, of bizarre shapes, sculpted by water. There are almost no people on the beach, and those who are there are all nudists. We also swim without swimsuits, with masks.
I saw a little flounder — round, flat, the color of sand with white spots and a tiny head — such a funny fish, like a pancake. And then we saw two more lionfish. One, larger than the others, was swimming in deeper water; the second was swimming near the shore. We thought that if you swim without a mask, it would be very easy to run into it in the shallows. After swimming, it feels so nice to lie naked on the warm rocks. We lie there and watch the sun hide behind the cliff, and now almost the whole bay is in the shade. Time to go home.
Smooth stones in Trafoulas Bay
Part of the bay is already in shadow
Us :)
We return home in the rays of the setting sun. Everything around is incredibly beautiful. How can we take this beauty and feeling of delight with us?
