I found paradise in a remote part of Greece – 30 years on it’s ruined

I first visited Elafonisi Beach on the southwestern corner of Crete 30 years ago. Fleeing a messy relationship, I bought a budget flight and ended up in Kastelli Kissamos, on the island’s northwestern tip.

I went to this resort because a Bo Derek lookalike with braided hair, who I met on the lumbering KTEL bus from Chania, said it was “wonderful and unspoilt.”

It soon became evident why Kastelli was so “unspoilt”: there was very little there, except a pebbly beach dotted with German nudists and a couple of tavernas.

That evening, over moussaka and a carafe of cheap wine, I got chatting with some Scandinavian hippies who told me about Elafonisi, a “magical” pink beach with really blue waters and hardly any tourists – “so you can do what you like.”

No buses went to the remote spot, so I took their advice and hired a moped from Stelios, who wore sandals carved from car tyres and owned the town’s auto repair shop.

After bombarding me with the usual questions Greek men ask foreign women (“Where are you from?“, “Why aren’t you married with five children?“) and advising me to get a good local man “to sort you out”, Stelios handed over the keys, adding: “You’ll be at Elafonisi in an hour.”

Three hours later, shortly after passing the 17th-century Chrysoskalitissa Monastery, Elafonisi finally appeared on the horizon. Coloured by the crushed shells of amoeba-like, single-celled foraminifera, the blush-pink sands shimmered in the hot sun opposite a dune-studded peninsula covered in honeysuckle-scented pancratium lilies (the same ones held by Minoan dancers in the Knossos frescoes). There were no sunbeds, no hotels, no canteens selling overpriced souvlaki, and only a handful of sunbathers. It was magical.

Three decades on, Elafonisi’s secret is well and truly out. Earlier this year it was named best beach in the world on TripAdvisor’s annual Travellers’ Choice Awards.

So has it retained its magic? I returned to find out.

A quick look at TripAdvisor offered an early warning. While Elafonisi Beach’s average rating is an impressive 4.4 (out of five) – hence the award – there are plenty of naysayers, with many complaining about overcrowding.

“You go all that way and there’s no pink sand, it’s horribly overcrowded, and it’s not even possible to swim properly [because] it’s so shallow,” said one disgruntled reviewer.

“It took us four hours to get here and we stayed only 30 minutes. The only pink I saw in the sand were the thousands and thousands of tourist feet. Stop your stupid filters,” wrote another. I prepared for disappointment.

Apart from the shiny green facade of the coffee shop that had replaced Stelios’s garage, Kissamos was pretty much as I remembered it.

“We used to go to Elafonisi with the kids – it was heaven. But you won’t find Greeks there anymore – it’s become a tourist trap,” said a waiter in AntaMa, one of the town’s tavernas. “€20 or €30 for sunbeds? €5 for a bottle of water? We’ve been priced out.”

This time, I’d opted for a hire car instead of a moped, but the road to Elafonisi – with its sheer drops and blind bends – was just as dicey as I remembered, perhaps more so because of the heavy traffic.

A couple of kilometres or so from the beach, two guys in hi-vis jackets tried to direct me into a car park. But I’d read online reviews advising me to ignore them, so I drove on and joined the chaos of cars and coaches jockeying for space in a car park much closer to the beach.

By now there were dozens of people lining the road – the fit and able striding ahead; feebler beachgoers staggering and shedding clothes in the 38-degree heat. Others were returning, red-faced.

“Don’t bother going – all the beach umbrellas have been rented out, so there’s no shade. It’s unbearable,” a female tourist told me.

Another tourist said he’d been told there weren’t any sunbeds available, but then he’d seen a tour operator reserve dozens of beds for his clients who were about to arrive.

“You travel all this way to get here, and when you arrive there’s nowhere to sit, no shade, and the water’s so shallow you can’t even swim properly – it’s one of the most overrated and unpleasant places I have ever been to,” he fumed.

After half an hour of walking in the heat, I made it to the beach. Although it was late September, the glorious near-deserted strand where I once spent a blissful week was packed with pink bodies, and the once-limpid seas churned with jet skis.

I didn’t even bother having a swim – I spent the day at neighbouring Kedrodasos Beach instead, where there were cedar trees for shade, and the water was just as blue as Elafonisi’s, only without the crowds.

“TripAdvisor was the kiss of death for Elafonisi,” my car hire company’s owner agreed when I returned my vehicle.

“It’s like Santorini – people come here just for the photos.” And just like Santorini, they’re destroying all the beauty they came to see.

The Telegraph UK

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