Matala

The sandstone cliff rises from the southern edge of a crescent beach, its face pocked with dark cave mouths that have sheltered the dead, the countercultural, and the curious for two thousand years. The sea below is clear enough to see the bottom from the cliff path, and the village behind the beach still has the loose, unhurried feel of a place that never quite moved on from the 1970s.

The cliff caves at Matala were carved as Roman burial chambers from the 1st to 3rd centuries AD — rectangular niches cut into the soft sandstone are still visible inside each cave. In the 1960s and 1970s a community of hippies occupied the caves; both Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan are reported to have stayed here, and Mitchell's song 'Carey' references the village directly. The caves are now a fenced archaeological site, but the beach below remains open and the village atmosphere retains a countercultural streak. Ten kilometres north, the ruins at Kommos include Minoan ship sheds dating to around 1600 BC — among the earliest known purpose-built harbour structures in the Mediterranean. Diving and snorkelling operators use the predictable afternoon wind pattern to schedule morning sessions when the bay is flat.