(Agios Nikolaos, Crete)
With good weather in the forecast for March 8, we decided to take a day trip to the town of Agios Nikolaos (“St. Nicholas”). It’s much smaller than Heraklion, but it still is the 5th largest community in Crete. Agios Nikolaos is about a 90 minute bus ride east from Heraklion.
It didn’t take us long to discover the defining feature of Agios Nikolaos: Lake Voulismeni. The downtown radiates out from a small lake located just metres from the sea. As the lake is at the base of a large, steep hill, it’s also easily photographed. I found myself taking quite a few pictures from the top of the hill, including the photo you see at the very top of this post.
Many cafes and restaurants are on the lake’s shore. We ultimately had a coffee break at one of them. But Agios Nikolaos also seems to attract visitors because of its many seaside beaches. We ended up at three of them without even trying. And even though temperatures were only around 16’C, some diehards were sunbathing and even swimming!
Partly because it was a Sunday, and mostly because it was low season, very few businesses were open besides the restaurants. Even many of the restaurants were closed. As such, I can’t really comment on the retail situation in Agios Nikolaos. But it didn’t seem to have the “niche” stores that we saw in Heraklion.
We explored the streets near the shore and the main beaches before eventually turning our minds to one of the most important questions on an early Sunday afternoon: what shall we do for lunch?
We searched for restaurants that were both open and well-reviewed. Alas, many of the better restaurants were closed completely, or didn’t open until the evening. Looking a little further away from downtown, we found something not historically associated with Greece: a restaurant specializing in crêpes. We were intrigued enough, and hungry enough, to give it a shot.
O Crepas is a family-run establishment that seemed to be doing a good trade with locals as well as visitors. While most customers were dining (or drinking) al fresco, we decided to take a window seat in the restaurant itself. I opted for a Greek cider and a prosciutto crêpe.
I have to say – this was one of the best crêpes I have ever had. It was loaded with fresh arugula, cheese, and prosciutto, and the balsamic glaze was just perfect. After the fact, I did some research…and while crêpes clearly originate in France, they have become really popular in Greece. Some even call Greece the second home of crêpes. Who knew?
After lunch, we decided to continue walking away from downtown and toward a third beach. Ammoudi Beach was completely abandoned…except for what looked like two people swimming farther and farther away from shore.
Ammoudi Beach had a lot of sand, and we discovered that we still had an extra pair of socks in the backpack. After some discussion, we decided that it would be a shame to come all the way to Agios Nikolaos and not go in the water. So, we took off our shoes and socks, rolled up our pants, and went in!
The water wasn’t as cold as we thought it would be. And although I’m wearing a jacket in the above photo, I then tossed it on the shore and went in for another “dip” afterward. There was plenty of sand, and the water got deeper only very gradually, so I could actually go quite some distance out from the shore. As it turned out, we dried quite quickly and didn’t need to resort to the extra socks.
After our dip, we returned downtown and found a lakefront cafe (Peripou) where we could enjoy the view and rehydrate before our bus ride back to Heraklion. Once again, the variety of chocolate beverages was almost overwhelming.
While Agios Nikolaos may not have had enough to keep us occupied for eight days, it was a perfect day trip from Heraklion. We decided to do at least one more day trip on Crete before returning to Athens.