Gramvousa, Crete
The long way down to Balos
A shallow lagoon between a sand spit and a rocky cape, and 294 steps down to it. Scroll to walk them.
Scroll
From the air
A lagoon you can walk across.
Cape Tigani hangs off the end of the Gramvousa peninsula by a strip of sand. Behind it the water is barely knee deep.
The viewpoint · 95 m
Everyone stops here for the photo.
From the top of the steps you see all of it at once: the lagoon, the spit, the cape. The sand is still 95 metres below.
The steps · 45 m
294 steps.
Paving stones and gravel, straight down the hillside through thyme and thorny burnet. The heat comes up off the rock.
The last stretch · 15 m
Then the stones run out into sand.
The path drops the last few metres onto the east shore of the lagoon. Shoes off here.
The sand · 2 m
Pink sand, and water like glass.
The pink is crushed shell. Walk north through the ankle-deep lagoon and over the bar, to where the open sea comes in.