An ancient civilisation, pirates, Venetian fortresses, Ottoman rule and a leper colony where you enter through Dante’s Gate. All of this on a tiny island just a long stone’s throw from the fishing village of Plaka.
Spinalonga has enough history for several films. And somehow, it has managed to squeeze most of Crete’s complicated past into one small island.
Spinalonga, also known as Kalydon, is one of the major sights in eastern Crete, alongside the famous Minoan city of Knossos. But unlike Knossos, its story doesn’t belong to just one civilisation. It is a story of conquest, trade, religion, disease and survival.
You only need about an hour to explore the island, but it’s well worth visiting between beaches and Greek salads. Especially if, like me, you enjoy places where history is a little darker and considerably more complicated than the usual holiday story.
Lepers only
From 1903 to 1957, Spinalonga was a leper colony and one of the last active colonies of its kind in Europe. It closed just a few years after an effective treatment for leprosy became available.
Imagine being diagnosed with a terrible, feared disease and being told that you must leave your home and move to an isolated island. Not for a holiday, but for the rest of your life.
When you get off the boat, you enter through Dante’s Gate. Is it the gateway to hell? Well, I walked through it, and these days the only hell is the tourists, myself included.
But the name is a reminder of what this place once represented. For those sent here, the gate marked the boundary between their former lives and an uncertain future.
Imagine being taken away from your home and told to leave everything behind because you would never return. You became an outcast, and your name could even be erased from the official records of your hometown. As if you had never existed.
According to biblical interpretations, leprosy was sometimes seen as a punishment for sin. It was a terrible stigma to carry, and people were often shunned by their own communities.
It sounds like something from a horror film or the so-called Dark Ages. (I know they weren’t actually dark, but it suits my agenda here.)
And when you died, you might be placed in a nameless grave because no family member would ever come to mourn you.
This is the sort of history that fascinates me. I have a particular interest in dark tourism, but for me, it isn’t about finding places that are creepy for the sake of it. It’s about understanding what happened to real people, how societies treated those they feared, and what remains of their stories.
Spinalonga is a place where the past is not particularly difficult to imagine. You just have to walk through the gate.
Was life on Spinalonga really that bad?
Well, it wasn’t all bad. And that might sound like a strange thing to say about a leper colony, but the reality was more complicated than simply being sent away to die.
The living conditions on the island were, in some ways, better than those the sick would have experienced at home. There was a church, doctors and a hospital, as well as a bakery, a school and small shops.
Some of the residents even survived until the colony closed in 1957.
For many, life outside the island would not necessarily have been much better. The social stigma surrounding leprosy meant that people could be isolated and rejected by their communities even if they remained at home.
If I thought I could infect my family, I would go. But otherwise, not all the bread in the world would make me leave my family.
That is the dilemma that makes the history of Spinalonga so compelling. It was a place of exclusion, but also a place where people built lives, formed communities and tried to make the best of a situation they had not chosen.
And if you want to make the island feel a little more sombre, I would suggest visiting on a cold, damp day in January. You’ll get that creepy, hooded feeling much more easily than on a sunny summer afternoon surrounded by tourists.
Leprosy isn't just history
Apparently, leprosy is still around, with more than 200,000 new cases reported worldwide in 2017, according to the WHO. The name comes from the Greek lepra, meaning a scaly skin condition.
Spinalonga’s story also inspired The Island, an award-winning novel by Victoria Hislop. Its success brought more visitors to the island, and Hislop chose a Greek television adaptation over Hollywood.
But the leper colony is only one chapter of Spinalonga’s history. The most impressive buildings on the island weren’t built for the people who lived here in the twentieth century.
They were built for the pirates.
Salty waters
Spinalonga Island used to be part of the Spinalonga Peninsula. Confused? So is everyone else.
The island and the nearby peninsula share the same name, largely because they were once connected. The island’s actual ancient name is Kalydon, but everyone still uses the name given to it by the Venetians: Spinalonga.
The island only became an island when the Venetians cut through the land in the late sixteenth century, separating it from the peninsula for military purposes.
And why were the Venetians so interested in this tiny stretch of land?
Olive oil and salt.
The Venetians ruled Crete for centuries, and the island’s agricultural produce and strategic position made it an important part of their Mediterranean trading network.
You can still see the remains of the old salt pans near the peninsula, both above and below the water. Built in the fifteenth century, they continued to function until 1972.
The process was fairly straightforward. Seawater was trapped in shallow basins and left to evaporate, leaving the salt behind. We did the same thing in Denmark once.
The salt was then sent to markets across Europe.
But a valuable trade needed protection. And the Venetians were not going to leave their precious salt and shipping routes exposed to whoever happened to sail past.
So they turned Spinalonga into a fortress, with thick, solid walls designed to protect the harbour and the surrounding waters.
But why was that necessary?
Well, let’s go even further back in time.
Pirates rule
Pirates? Is this just an article where I make up stories?
No. The Venetians had very good reasons for investing so much time and money in fortifying Spinalonga. They wanted to protect their trade routes, and not just from any pirate.
From Barbarossa himself!
The thrilling and dramatic story of the (in)famous pirate and Ottoman admiral, who now has a splendid tomb in Istanbul, is far too long for this article. But you can read more about him here .
He has already inspired films and even a LEGO toy.
Being a pirate, or being attacked by pirates, was of course no joke. But I can’t help getting a little excited about the whole thing. It’s all very Black Sails.
Pirates had been raiding this part of the Mediterranean for centuries, with activity dating back to the 900s and continuing for hundreds of years.
Eventually, the Venetians took control of Crete and began building fortifications to protect their trading routes. The defences at Spinalonga were extended during the sixteenth century, partly in response to the threat from pirates and the Ottoman fleet.
These two threats are often lumped together in accounts of the island’s history, although pirates and the Ottoman military were not the same thing.
The fortifications were intended to protect a strategic harbour and a valuable commercial network. And given the island’s position, it is easy to understand why the Venetians considered it worth defending.
From Venetian fortress to Ottoman settlement
Around a century later, Crete came under Saracen occupation, and many Christians fled to Spinalonga, which retained its independence.
The island’s military importance continued long after the Venetians had established their fortifications.
In 1715, Turkish families were forced to move to Spinalonga as part of the effort to establish Ottoman rule. The settlement that followed is partly restored and still visible today. When Crete gained its autonomy in 1898, around 1,000 Muslims lived on the island.
Fifteen years later, Spinalonga became a leper colony.
And today? No permanent inhabitants.
It is quite extraordinary to think about how many different communities have called this tiny island home, and how dramatically their lives and circumstances changed.
From ancient traders and Venetian soldiers to Ottoman families and people forced into isolation because of disease, Spinalonga has witnessed an extraordinary amount of history for such a small place.
But we still haven’t reached the beginning of the story.
A sunken city
Building fortresses and controlling Mediterranean trade routes were hardly Venetian inventions. Long before, the Spinalonga Peninsula, when it was still connected to the island, was part of an ancient Cretan settlement.
On Spinalonga, you won’t find traces of the earliest settlement. But remember, it was once connected to the peninsula and on the small stretch of land near the Venetian salt pans stood the ancient city of Olous. And the city is now sunken. Yes, sunken! Seriously, someone should make a film about this place.
The modern town of Elounda takes its name from Olounda or Olous, and the ancient city was mentioned by Homer as one of the cities of Crete. Homer! Now we’re talking epic history. Olous was a prosperous city with its own coinage, and it continued to flourish during Byzantine times.
But the same strategic position that brought wealth also attracted trouble. Pirates forced inhabitants to move inland, and later wars would do the same. At some point, parts of the ancient city sank, probably as a result of an earthquake and changes in the coastline. On a clear, windless day, you can still see traces of the ancient ruins beneath the surface of the water.
I love places like this. You can be standing in what looks like an ordinary seaside holiday destination, with restaurants and boats all around you, and beneath the water lies an entire ancient city.
A little-known early Christian basilica
Allegedly, flamingoes now roam the salty waters around here, although we haven’t see any despite been here many times.
There is also a lovely little pebble beach on the stretch of land linking the peninsula to Crete. And behind the restaurants, you will find the remains of the early Christian basilica at Poros Elounda.
The church still has a beautiful mosaic floor, featuring dolphins. In fact, the decoration makes it look more like a Roman villa than a church.
It is clearly not one of the high-profile antiquities in Crete, because there was no one else there when we visited.
Which, of course, is exactly the sort of place I love discovering.
You can explore an ancient Christian church, admire its mosaics and imagine the people who worshipped there, all without the crowds you might expect at the major archaeological sites.
And all of this is just around the corner from Spinalonga.
How to get to Spinalonga
Since Spinalonga is no longer connected to the mainland, you can only get there by boat.
And while you shouldn’t expect to be the only visitor, it is nothing like Dubrovnik in terms of crowds.
You can also book longer cruises with dining and everything included, but you’ll never hear me recommending a boat trip that lasts longer than five minutes. Luckily, there are several options:
- From Plaka it's only around 7 min. (my kind of boat ride) and costs 10. The office is just on main street. I didn't book in advance. The boat leaves every half hour until 18.00.
- From Elounda, the boat runs every 30 min. and takes around 20 min.
- From Agios Nikolaos, they only leave in the morning and return in the afternoon with lunch and swimming on the way.
This was my fourth visit to Crete and will not be my last. Both my sister and my husband have lived here, so I have a particular affection for the island. Crete is pretty spectacular, and in a way, Spinalonga contains most of its complex history in one small place.
Ancient civilizations, Venetian merchants and soldiers, pirates, Ottoman rule, religious communities and the leper colony. So many foreign rulers and different people coming and going. And we haven’t even included all of them. And if you enjoy cultural travel with a little dark history thrown in, this tiny island deserves a place on your Crete itinerary.
Get my tips on living like a local on Crete! or if you’re more interested in the monuments left behind by the once-powerful Venetians, head to Kotor, Montenegro!
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What an interesting read! So much rich history on such a tiny place! I recently returned from Athens, Mykonos and Paros, and it made me want spend more time on the islands in Greece. The USA also has a history of a leper colony in Hawaii on the island of Molokai.
Thank you so much. Yes indeed a lot of history. I like Athens, but haven’t been to Paros or Mykonos. Paros should be nice – is it? It’s weird about the leper colonies – I read they still exists somewhere.