Myrtos, where Crete slows to the pace of the Libyan Sea

Myrtos sits where the Kryos river runs out into the Libyan Sea, under the bare cone of Kolektos hill. Whitewashed houses fill the space between them. The beach of grey sand and fine pebbles runs the length of the village, and the seafront in front of it belongs to people on foot: tavernas on one side, sunbeds and the sea on the other.

People have lived here for almost five thousand years. On the ridge of Fournou Korifi, just east of the village, archaeologists found a hundred-room Early Minoan settlement with wine presses, olive oil jars and weaving looms. They also found the jug-shaped figure known as the Goddess of Myrtos. On Pyrgos, the hill right above the beach, a Minoan country house looked out over this same bay until fire destroyed it around 1450 BC.

The modern village has a harder story. On 15 September 1943, during the Viannos massacres, German forces ordered Myrtos evacuated. Eighteen men and boys who refused were shot, and the houses were burned. A simple pillar in the village carries their names, and every 15 September the village gathers there. Families came back and rebuilt inside the burned walls. Greenhouses and, from the 1970s, travellers slowly brought Myrtos back to life.

Some of those early travellers never really left. Myrtos keeps the same easy character today: no big resorts and no party strip, many people who return every year, and evenings that end with music under a plane tree. It is a few degrees warmer than the north coast, which makes it one of the best places on Crete for a long, unhurried spring or autumn.