Loutro 4K, Crete: top attractions & beaches | Greece Travel guide
Loutro, nature’s peaceful marina
Leave your wheels and high-heels behind, and discover authentic holidays in Greece. The journey by boat from Hora Sfakion gives you just enough time to prepare for the pure and simple way of life that awaits you at Loutro. Built like an amphitheatre above the sheltered bay, with its quaint homes, tavernas and beach, this car-free hamlet moves at a leisurely pace. In Loutro’s bay you can kayak or canoe until you reach the nearby beaches of Glyka Nera and Marmara.
Loutro is a small seaside village situated approximately 71 km south of Chania city. It was the site of the ancient city of Phoenix and was the port of ancient Anopolis. Later, it became the winter port for Chora Sfakion, due to the fact that the enclosed bay and the small island at its entrance create a natural harbor where ships can be safe even in very bad weather.
You can stay at Loutro and use it as a base for visiting surrounding beaches, either by taxi boat, canoe or on foot. You can get a small ferry to the magestic beach of Glyka Nera east of the village. Moreover, you can canoe or walk in the E4 trail till the adjacent unorganized pebbly beaches of Timios Stavros and Pervolaki and then continue to Glyka Nera. However, if you want to stay at Loutro, the small beach in front of Loutro and the longer beach right after the east end of the village, called Keramos, are a very good choice, especially when wind from South is strong. The beaches are pebbly, well-organised and the water is always calm and has an amazing deep blue and green color. Moreover, you could either walk or catch a boat to the closeby beaches of Likos, Finikas and Marmara. Some lucky people that they visit the beach during April or Octomber and November can enjoy privacy, as they will be so alone there that could practically may have outdoors sex without anyone noticing!
Loutro is a place for those people who want something different. A small picturesque fishing village in south west Crete, not yet spoilt by mass tourism. For example there are no big hotels with swimming pools. There are no overcrowded streets, restaurants and beaches, there are no cars! The only access is by boat or as you wish, by foot (1.5-2 hour trekking from Chora Sfakion). There are daily ferries to/from Chora Sfakion, Sougia, Gavdos island, Paleochora and Agia Roumeli.
There are hundreds of people who walk down the Samaria Gorge each day in the summer. After a drink at one of the tavernas in Agia Roumeli where the gorge opens to the sea and perhaps enjoying a swim, most board the ferry taking them to Chora Sfakia (Sfakia).
There, waiting buses transport the aching crowds back to Chania. On the way, the ferry calls in at Loutro and many vow to visit it one day - few do so!
Loutro is peaceful - it is small and feels like a village even if 95% of the people here in the summer are visitors. It takes less than five minutes to amble from one side of the bay from Sifis Hotel & Maestrali Bar (Vangelis'), past Daskalogiannis Hotel, the tavernas, mini-market, the Blue House, the pebble beach, Hotel Porto Loutro, Notos, Fat Stav's, a couple more tavernas and then Keramos rooms and fish taverna.
Don't forget the church, second mini-market and a few other buildings - more rooms including perched-on-the-hillside Villa Niki - that's it!
Loutro evokes some great emotion - produced perhaps by the unique combination of the steep, harsh, rock mountainsides - audibly decorated with the clinking of goat bells - the sun visibly changing the panorama in view as its ark lights different aspects of the slopes forming the bowl - the bay that houses Loutro, the often-warm sea, the history and the people. This magic place.
No road leads here - therefore no mopeds, cars and trucks disturb contemplation, conversation and consumption of food or drink. A port of shelter for St Paul we hear, and one of the best shelters from a stormy workplace or busy professional life.
Small, stunningly beautiful - no nightlife or discos, just a multinational, multi-everything group of visitors staying in its closely grouped buildings. During the day even when all rooms are full, Loutro can be almost empty - many have gone to sauté gently on nearby beaches, or tackle books, strolls, walks and - let's be serious - hikes.
You are left to act as your own custodian of the semi circular bay, with small pebble beach, edged with hotel, domatia and waterside tavernas. So gaze at the ruins on the hilltop, measure the approaching ferry, decide whether to read a few pages more, walk over the hill to the taverna of Phoenix, or plot your ascent to Anopolis a thousand metres above...it's up to you. Time passes.
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