Spinalonga Peninsula

Map of Elounda, Spinalonga and surrounding areas.

The Spinalonga Peninsula is a part of the uninhabited Kalydon island area that belongs to the city of Elounda, Crete, Greece. In the north its little sister the true island of Spinalonga can be found. In its east the island of Kolokythas can be found forming a bay. The strand on the peninsula is called Kolokita beach due to its view on the neighbor island. The peninsula is sometimes also called Kalydon or sometimes erroneously assumed to bear the name Kolokythas due to the name of the beach. Sometimes the peninsula is called "large Spinalonga" or "big Spinalonga" so its clearly distinguished from the much smaller true island.

In the south-west of the peninsula a road leads from the large island Crete on a dam via a smaller island object to the peninsula. At the point where the peninsula is entered a smaller channel exists, built once in 1897 by the French army, and a stone bow bridge leads across it that allows car based access to the area. The passage is guarded by three round towers with two having a very flat cone shaped roof - this once might have been wind mills. On the coast, there was once salt drying tubs, but in the now orphaned areas, lots of varieties birds can be found, including a population of flamingos. There is an older Christian church on a hill in the south-east nearby the road to the beach.[1]

References

Coordinates: 35°16′30″N 25°44′40″E / 35.27500°N 25.74444°E / 35.27500; 25.74444

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, September 16, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.