Chania Trails - APO 01 - Aptera, Between Air and Water

The path to the village of Stylos runs past a series of distinctive cultural monuments until it brings us to the fossil of the sirenia (an ancestor of the sea cow) showcased in the center of the village. It then continues past the springs carrying water from the Lefka Ori and meanders along the lush bank of the Koiliaris River to bring us to Kyani Akti beach and from there to the Itzedin Fortress.

A 4,000 years cultural route

The route puts us in touch with every civilization that left a footprint in passing on Crete over the course of the millennia: Minoan settlements and monuments, Hellenistic and Roman ruins, Byzantine churches, a Venetian watermill, the Ottoman castle and fortress… and all this as part of the Cretan landscape and the bas-relief of Apokoronas.

One of the highlights of the path is the stretch running parallel to the Cyclopean wall that once encircled Aptera, with its enduring view of the mountain and the diverse landscape of the Apokoronas province. This part of the trail makes the hiker feel as foreign travelers to Crete in bygone centuries must have felt.

One such explorer, the British poet and illustrator Edward Lear, wrote the following – after giving us his famous drawings of the landscape and the view from the walls of Aptera – in his Cretan Journal on 4 May 1864: “Everywhere from the circuit of this ancient place there is a fine view, but the vast hollow of Apokoronas plain, backed by the snowy range and seen between crags of a pale grey or nearly white is magnificent.” He then continued along his way, heading to the Koiliaris River and the village of Armenoi.