Spinalonga fortress — Attraction in Municipality of Agios Nikolaos

Our visit to the old leper colony/Venician fortress was poignant and fascinating.

Our guide, Paul, had a relative who'd been one of the island's inhabitants not long before it closed.

His insight into the history of the place therefore had a depth of passion you couldn't have gleaned from a guidebook. And the island's dilapidated buildings do have some real horror stories to tell (and no doubt ghosts to accompany them).

However, if you do want to see all of Spinalonga, you might prefer to tour the island yourself.

For some reason, all the tours to the island combine a barbecue and swim and visit to Agios Nikalaos with the stop there. The ratio is wrong and you get to spend too little time on Spinalonga as a result.

There's a church, still operative, in the centre of Main Street from which you can buy a guidebook (€5.00), which is detailed enough to warrant making your own way around if you'd prefer.

Even with the bbq, swim and stop off, it's worthwhile visiting this ancient place.

I guess you could get a bus to Elounda from which the boat trip departs, a stunning resort in its own right (and one the tour operators may ought to think about switching with Agios Nikalaos as the post-visit chill out venue).

You certainly can't do Agios Nikalaos in the time they allot. Doing Elounda instead would cut down on time travelling and free up more time to spend on Spinalonga.

Take a camera, your factor 30, a hat and a pair of sturdy shoes to make your visit a comfortable one.

From Hersonissos, the tour cost us €40 per person, which included travel to Agios Nikalaos, the boat stop to allow a swim in the crystal sea next to the bbq grill on the beach, the island itself, entry onto it and said bbq lunch, which wasn't half bad.

Decent value, but you could probably do it cheaper if you cut out the extraneous travel,...

What an incredible place with loads of history.

We’ve always wanted to visit the island after reading the book! (The Island by Victoria HisIop) When we stepped on to Spinalonga and went through the tunnel, we were trying to imagine how that must of felt for those people that arrived there for the first time knowing they would never leave, if you do read the book you’ll be thinking of all the heartache family’s had to endure when a family member was banished to the island , so it’s a very poignant start to the trip :(

A lot of the original homes have now been destroyed or derelict and most of the information on the notice boards is based around it being a Venetian fortress (obviously it’s not going to be about the book!) with only a hint of it’s use as a leper colony for 50+ years. If you’ve never been, it’s definitely worth the trip. We were there for about two hours which was long enough for us to walk around the whole island and appreciate its history. As you follow the path, there’s a tiny church on the far side and as you walk back round to the entrance you could almost miss the small cemetery on the left hand side.. all the graves are unmarked but we went up to just spend a few minutes and ponder the meaning of life …

The short boat journey over from Plaka was calm and it cost €12 each, you also need to pay €20 pp to go round the island. We went in May, so we had a warm sun but a cool breeze so it was just the best day to visit, before we left we stopped at the little cafe on the island and enjoyed a cold drink looking back to the mainland ( the selection isn’t great, loads of cold drinks and snacks but they don’t do coffees or hot food so we think they’re missing a trick there, especially with the view they have!)

It was something we had wanted to do for years and it was definitely...

Amazing island. We visit such places alone so that we have time to see what we like. Visiting this island left us with a lot of impressions. Believe me, visiting this island will not leave you indifferent. In the short period of time that we were here, we tried to visit the entire island, along the perimeter and buildings from the upper tier to the lower one. One of the strongest impressions is a small pier and, I think, the main entrance to the island at that time, where right behind the entrance you will see a hall, where the sicks were disinfected. The mere thought, that you will never leave this island, when you pass this gate is terrifying. And the more you begin to appreciate life and what you have now, when you walk along these streets and look at the building where these people lived, where they were treated, where they went to church. Here you begin to have great respect for those people, for those initiators who, in this situation, did not lose heart, but tried to make life more or less normal, despite such monstrous conditions and such cruel blows of fate. And probably at that time, as well as now, and the beautiful view from this island, and everything small and large that was and is on this island, all this gave them faith and hope. If we begin to think about all this, we begin to see and feel the beauty of this place and everything, that surrounds us, and we will left back the island with more love to the life when before. Overall a real nice place, we...