
There’s no easy road to Siteia, and that’s why it’s still such a lovely place to go. It’s not that far from Ierapetra, or Agios Nikolaos, but it feels like it’s much further than it is. You’ve basically got two choices of route, but only if you’re going there from Ierapetra. If you’re going from the north of the island, then you have just one choice, to take the coast road all around the southern perimeter of Mirabello Bay, through Ystro and Pachi Ammos, and then the road gets really twisty-turny for the last 40 km or so to Siteia. You’re constantly changing gear, going around tight bends. Straight sections of road are few and far between, making it a real bind if you’re stuck behind a large truck, which is a distinct possibility if you happen on be on your way there on the days when the Preveli is due to stop by at Siteia’s port.
Once you’re past Pachi Ammos you pass a series of villages, starting with Kavousi, through which the road still passes. Other villages along the route require a detour off of the main road if you want to investigate them, including Lastros, Mirsini, Mesa and Exo Mouliana, Chamaizi, Skopi and yet more besides. Although if you’re driving the route takes all of your concentration, the flip side is that the scenery is often quite breathtaking. At this time of the year, on parts of the route, which often winds through steep-sided valleys and then over passes between mountains, the roadside vegetation is spectacularly colourful. When we drove the road a couple of weeks ago, the broom was in full flower, and in places both sides of the road were an absolute riot of bright yellow. Not only that, but the scent gets into the car, even if you’re using the air-con, and it’s a sheer springtime delight. Of course, now we’re getting towards the back end of May, it’ll be fading fast, but the route is always a wonder to behold as, not only is the flora something to see, but you’ll also spot birds of prey soaring and swooping, often below the level of the road, including anything from falcons through buzzards and all the way up to the mighty Griffon Vulture.
Weirdly, as you catch your first distant view of Siteia, the road improves dramatically and begins, at least for the last few kilometres, to even resemble the newer parts of the very fast road between Ag Nik and Heraklion. As you approach the back of the town, there’s a left turn that takes you to the airport, but also runs on down to the entrance to the port at the northernmost tip of the town, which faces due east. If you find yourself passing the local branch of Lidl, then you’ve missed the left turn by a few hundred metres. It is signposted if you keep an eye out, both to the airport and to the sea port. Taking that road is a great idea because, if you’re either going to the port, or staying at the delightful, if very modest, little hotel that we’d booked ourselves into, the Nora, it’s the way to go, because the hotel is situated only a hundred metres or so past the port entrance. If you were heading for the port but missed that road, you’d be faced with the near impossible task of having to negotiate some seriously small streets in the town, which make it extra tricky getting around if you’re not from those parts, owing to a one-way system that was probably invented by the same mind that thought up the game “Mornington Crescent,” which is an essential part of any episode of the brilliant and very silly BBC Radio show “I’m Sorry I haven’t a Clue.”


It would be so easy to start thinking, ‘Why don’t they build a better road to this delightful and unspoilt little seaside town?‘ Well, like I said, if you’re travelling there from Ierapetra, you have another choice of route, and that is the road that crosses the hinterland from Makrygialo, about 20km east of Ierapetra along the south coast. The bad news is, it’s just as twisty-turny as the road along the north coast from Pachi Ammos, even more so, in fact. The thing is, once you do the trip you soon realise that the expense required to build a modern highway all the way to Siteia would be way out of Greece’s affordable budget by several light years, and then some. Frankly, it’s a good thing too. The cost to the amazingly unspoilt environment that is eastern Lasithi would be horrendous, and the town of Siteia would soon be buried under the mass tourism that sadly now blights so many formerly tranquil beauty spots all across this country. Places that we’ve been to over the years, like much of Corfu, Santorini, Rhodes, Malia and Gouves, Rethymnon and Chania here on Crete – and I hesitate to mention those by name, but there you go, it’s how I see it, such places are now often’ rip-off city,’ or their beauty spots are so overrun by tourists and tourist paraphernalia that you hardly hear a Greek voice while you’re there. Wasn’t it Don Henley, in the lyrics to that brilliant song by the Eagles, “The Last Resort,” that sang, “They call it paradise, I don’t know why, you call some place paradise, kiss it goodbye“?
Sorry to get all philosophical on you, but there it is. Tourism is a two-edged sword that so often gets out of hand. Here are a few shots of Siteia Town. There will be more thoughts about Siteia in the next post too.










My official website about my writings: https://johnphilipmanuel.wixsite.com/works
My Amazon Author page too. Thanks for your interest, it’s much appreciated, truly