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Between the palaces and the Libyan Sea

Kamilari stands on a hill above the Messara plain, a couple of kilometres from Phaistos and Agia Triada, with the beaches of Kalamaki and Kommos below.

35.0323° N · 24.7895° E

10 min by car to Phaistos
20–30 min on foot to the Minoan tomb
3 km to the beach at Kalamaki
Saturday market day in Moires

The village

A village built to watch the plain

Like almost all the old villages of Crete, Kamilari was built on high ground. The old village stood on Evgora hill, at about 110 metres, safer from pirates and from the Ottoman Turks, with the flat land below left for the fields and the olive trees.

The name comes from a Byzantine family name, Kamilaris, “the camel driver”. A Venetian census of 1583 already lists “Camilari”, with 77 inhabitants. Today the community of Kamilari also takes in Kalamaki on the coast and the hamlet of Agios Ioannis, so both of the family’s houses lie within it.

Tradition says that Epimenides, the Cretan seer counted among the Seven Sages of ancient Greece, lived at nearby Metochi. At Agios Ioannis, on the road to Phaistos, the small church of St Paul keeps a painted dome from the fourteenth century.

Village life

The apartments are 120 metres from the square. Around it you find a supermarket that stays open all year, a bakery for breakfast, a pharmacy, a cash machine, and the tavernas and cafés where the village meets in the evening. Kamilari is lived in all year round, so even in the quiet months three tavernas, two cafés and the supermarket stay open.

The village feast is on 6 August, the day of the Transfiguration, at the Church of the Saviour. Carnival is celebrated in the village before Lent, and at Easter the effigy of Judas is burnt, as in many Cretan villages.

Four thousand years ago

The Minoan sites next door

Few places in Crete are as close to the Minoans as Kamilari. Two palaces, a tomb and a harbour are all within a few kilometres.

Phaistos

The Minoan palace of Phaistos sits on a ridge above the Messara plain, under ten minutes from the apartments by car. It is far quieter than Knossos, and from its terraces you look across the plain to Mount Ida, Psiloritis.

Agia Triada

About ten minutes away is Agia Triada, a smaller Minoan site that fits easily into the same morning as Phaistos.

The Kamilari tomb

On Grigori Korfi, a low hill among the olive groves, stands a round Minoan tomb built about 2000 BCE. It was excavated by the archaeologist Doro Levi in 1959, and has five rooms and a forecourt around the circular chamber. Its best-known find is a small clay model of four dancers in a ring, now in the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion. From the village it is a walk of 20 to 30 minutes.

Kommos

Down on the coast, Kommos was the harbour of Phaistos, founded around the same time. The excavation is fenced and closed to visitors, but you can see it from the fence, beside Kommos beach. It is about ten minutes by car, or an hour on foot.

Gortyn, with its Roman ruins and the ancient law code carved in stone, is about 25 minutes away.

On foot

Walks from the door

You don’t need a car to enjoy Kamilari. Country lanes leave the village through the olive groves.

To the tomb. About two kilometres each way, 20 to 30 minutes, mostly on country lanes.
Through the olive groves. An easy loop of about six kilometres passes the tomb and returns to the village. Allow two hours with stops.
Down to the sea. Kalamaki beach is about three and a half kilometres away, some 45 minutes on foot.
Agiofarago. From the Odigitria monastery, about fifteen minutes by car, a dirt road and then a path lead into the Agiofarago gorge, which ends at the sea. Take water and good shoes.

The coast

Beaches within fifteen minutes

Below the village runs one of the longest beaches in Crete. Kalamaki, five to ten minutes by car, has tavernas along the beach and the family’s other apartments. South of it is the long sand of Kommos, quieter towards its northern end. Matala, with its caves in the cliff, is about fifteen minutes away, and Agia Galini about thirty.

The coast faces west, into the summer wind. On a windy day the sea at Kalamaki and Kommos can be rough; then we send swimmers to Kaloi Limenes, further east along the south coast.

When to come

Spring and autumn in Messara

We are open from April to early November. From May to September the south of Crete is hot, very hot in high summer, and there are more cars on the roads. Older guests in particular like to come in April and May, or from September to early November, when it is cooler and quieter.

Whatever the month, plan one morning for the market. On Saturdays villagers from all over Messara come to Moires, about fifteen minutes away, for what the town calls the biggest street market in Crete. On Fridays there is a smaller market in Tympaki, about ten minutes away. For a day inland, the village of Zaros and the Votomos lake are about 35 minutes by car.