Stavros, Zorbas' sweet home!

Few tourists visiting Chania and Crete actually come here. Still, this place is one of the most popular and well-known. Millions of people around the world have admired its beauty, but now many even know its name! How can this happen? It's because in Stavros, Akrotiri - yes, we're talking about Stavros - the Michalis Kakogiannis' movie "Zorbas the Greek" was directed, with leafing actor Antony Queen and music by Mikis Theodorakis, based on Nikos Kazantzakis' novel "Alexis Zorbas". One of the most sommercial movies ever made, a movie that "gave birth" to sirtaki dance! Millions of people everywhere admired "Alexis Zorbas" dancing in the unbelievable scenery but they didn't know where it was exactly (OK, somewhere in Crete but where?) or at least its name.



Akrotiri in general is not one of the most popular destinations in Crete, despite its beauty, its history and its proximity to the city of Chania. Still, it's one of the main entrances to the prefecture and Crete itself (airport). You can't say it lacks tourism and tourist infrastructure - over 50 hotels and apartments for rent can be found there, as well as dozens of taverns and restaurants - but in no way it is Falasarna, Sfakia or Maleme, Agioi Apostoloi or Venetian Port. Not even Aptera. When most of people say "I went to Akrotiri", they mean "I reached Chalepa and the Venizeloses' Tombs". Or as far as the Technical University, if some of their friends or relatives are students! Few "experts" reach wonderful Kalathas and very few are those who come to remote Stavros which oversees the Cretan Sea.
Stavros is absolutely modern village, there is nothing "traditional" or "picturesque". Still, it has its own architectural style, thanks to the good taste of  its residents and the village's multinational character. Because Stavros is a multi-cultural village: more than half of its permanent residents are foreigners. Most of them have built their houses there or have changed the houses they rent basing on their aesthetics and the architectural influence of their motherlands. Thus, Stavros is a nice architectural complex, with green gardens competing one another in their beauty.



The optical beauty is completed with the feast of smells: flowers of all kinds, trees and a note of sea breeze in the air make you feel good all the time.
And the scenery is a real museum of nature! Two wonderful beaches (which are united in one big shore) totally different between them - one is a bit "wild" and "exotic", and the other one is a picturesque bay ideal for family vacation. Both of them have crystal-clear water in the shades of green and blue. "The Sleeping Beauty", a hill looking like a sculpture made by God, is dominant in the place.
For me, Stavros is not just some village like all the others. It's Shakespeare's "Forrest of Arden", a place where you come to be cleared from the pollution of your previous life, to find yourself and to start from the beginning...