We decided to leave “our shelter”, the peaceful and calm beach of Myrtos, hoping that the windstorm would be gone. It was not. As soon as we left behind us the last houses of Myrtos, we realized that the wind which we thought it had calmed down, just kept blowing. We chose to stick to our plan and continue further east; of course we had no clue about what would happen later in the evening.
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The initial plan was to make a stop in Ierapetra for a visit and for some supplies. Ierapetra, thanks to the greenhouses, has the reputation of being the Greek city with the highest income per capita (!). It is the southernmost city of Europe and one of its sunniest (the temperature rarely goes below 12°C). Compared with the surrounding beaches and villages, it is a modern-style, cement-oriented city barely worth a visit, except for a stroll in the sea-side Venetian castle. It seemed that it was not such a good idea to walk next to the waterfront while the wind was getting stronger and stronger. Obviously we didn’t have much choice – either we should find a place to hide for the rest of the day in Ierapetra or we could continue to move east and to visit the camping Koutsounari for a review as we have planned to do after our stop in Ierapetra. To tell the truth, it wasn’t so difficult to choose.
We arrived in the camping driving merely with 30 km/hour to be able to keep our camper van under control. The wind speed was so high that it was difficult to even walk the few meters from the parking area to the reception. The owners of the camping informed us that the worst has not yet come and, (politely enough) they didn’t allow us to go. In the video below you can get an idea of the situation. Just imagine that it was still possible to move around; later it was too risky.
The camping is located less than 10 kilometers from Ierapetra [35.00885,25.82143], on a huge beach which is accessed directly from the campground. The prices are in line with those of other campsites in Crete (25 € for two people with camper and 220V in high season) with nice facilities and services. It is great choice for family holidays. Thanks again to the owners for their hospitality, friendliness and efficacy. Despite the extreme weather conditions (there were damages, injuries and the electricity was cut off throughout the region), they were well prepared and everything worked perfectly.
The next day, when things had calmed down a little, we stopped for a short hike to see the waterfalls of Milonas. The road to get there is not that bad, although the last part is unpaved. We parked our car at the side of the road and we followed the path [35.03062,25.84382]. It took us about twenty minutes to get to the falls. Unfortunately they had very little water even though it was the beginning of summer. The location and the scenery are still valuable and worth the detour.
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