Elafonissi day trip from Chania.

An Elafonissi day trip from Chania is a beach day whose largest part is the road. The sand and the shallow turquoise water sit at the southwest corner of Crete, and the drive from the city crosses the White Mountains or follows the west coast, depending on the operator. Either way you should expect most of an eight to ten hour day to be spent getting there and back. The beach itself is a wide, pale sandbar with water that stays knee-deep a long way out, which is why it photographs so well and why families like it. The famous pink tint comes from crushed shells and is easier to see in the shallows than as a solid pink shore.

Coach trips leave Chania in the morning and give you a fixed window on the sand before the return. That window is long enough for a swim and a walk toward the far end of the beach, and too short for a lazy afternoon. A hire car gives you the same road with the freedom to leave when the wind picks up, but you still have to drive it both ways, and the last kilometres are slower than the map suggests. There is a small islet you can wade to when the channel is calm. Wind and a bit of swell close that walk. Shade is limited to a few trees and the rented umbrellas near the entrance. The further you walk, the quieter it gets, and the longer the walk back to the coach.

Go for the water, not for a list of stops. The day suits swimmers, families with children who like shallow sea, and anyone who accepts a long transfer as the price of this particular beach. It does not suit people who get carsick on mountain roads, or a group that wants to be back in Chania for lunch. May, June and September are kinder than August, when the car park and the first hundred metres of sand are crowded by mid-morning. The beach is exposed. A meltemi day can still be beautiful and thoroughly unpleasant to sit through. If the forecast is windy, a south-coast boat from Paleochora or a town day in Chania will be the better use of the date.