Georgioupolis Crete

holiday report and map

Georgeopoulis beach Crete

GEORGIOUPOLIS Crete comes in various flavours of spelling such as GEORGEOPOLIS and GEORGIOPOLIS and is now well on the tourist map of Crete.
This is in part because Georgioupolis sits at one end of a very long stretch of sand half-way between the two main cities on the northern coast of Crete, Rethymnon in the east and Chania in the west.
The new Crete island main road also runs directly behind the beach area east-west making for easy access for visitor arrivals and for those who want to use the resort as a base for exploring this part of the island.
Georgioupolis village centre is a bit of a dump. The square is basically a car park hemmed in by an array of tourist shops, rental outfits and cafes. Advert hoardings abound and the place does nothing to shake of a shabby, temporary tourist atmosphere.
The rest of Georgioupolis village is a mish-mash of newly built apartments spread over a wide area of that used to be marshland. The saving grace are the tall and striking eucalyptus trees that provide plenty of shade.
The open beach at Georgioupolis runs in an almost straight line for 7km to the east towards Rethymnon. As it is north facing, it is a little exposed and sunbathers are prone to suffer when the wind gets up while swimmers must brace themselves for rough seas.
A long causeway runs out from the Georgiopoulis harbour area to an attractive and much photographed chapel. The unattractive harbour has been home to an ugly, rusting wreck for many years and an incongruous full-size tarmac soccer pitch sits next to the sea behind dilapidated wire fence.
The flat scrubland behind the long beach, a favoured, if deadly, dropping zone for hapless German paratroopers in World War II, is now spattered with modern beach hotels and beach village complexes.