Hiking
Nature and Areas of Beauty 'Sitia UNESCO Global Geopark'
If you are a lover of nature, then you are sure to be enchanted by the richness, diversity and abundance of wild flowers, plants and fragrant herbs in our area.With much of the area protected by ‘Natura’, east Crete also offers a wide variety of walking and hiking routes, with something suitable for all levels and ages, taking you through areas of outstanding, wild, unspoilt beauty.
Those with a desire to get acquainted to real Crete in depth, should look for the everlasting roots of the people and the exceptional human attitude that survived in Sitia due to the generosity of the stunning nature, its geographical seclusion and self sufficiency.
A trip to Sitia, a land of unprecedented contradictions and dazzling beauty, the predominant impression is that of a nature which is marked by all those features that human intelligence and sensuality should long for and the artistic expression should imitate.
– According to the ecology professor of the Crete University Mr. Mylonas: “A natural environment one of its kind in Greece and in Europe is of course a very rare if not unique natural and aesthetic Jewel”. The nature of Sitia district remains rich and virgin.
– There are many expanded candidate “NATURA areas”
– Numerous sites of exceptional natural beauty
– Rare geological forms and sights of geological development
– Ten (10) large gorges and geological crevices
– Three hundred (300) caves of great interest
– Two thousand one hundred (2100) species of self-sown plants, 300 are endemic and there are many aromatic or medicinal plants
– A great number of rare animal and bird species. Here you can find the biggest colony in the world of the Eleanor’s falcon (FALCO DE ELEONORA).
– The richest and purest sea biotope in the Aegean (Northern of Psiros island) where even corals grow.
– Wide meadows with the protected seaweed kind “Poseidonia”
– The unique in Europe Palm tree forest of Vai
– The beginning of the European path E4
– Many biotopes of mixed Euro-African vegetation (in Vai, Koufonisi etc.)