Due to its special flora and fauna, a large part of the natural environment of Chania consists of protected areas for hunting, national parks and natural habitats (lake of Ayia, lake of Kournas, islands of Gavdos and Gavdopoula, Elafonissi, etc.) which are protected by “Natura 2000”.

Discover the Gorges of Chania

Chania is a blessed and privileged place with a mild climate during the whole year, countless beauties and all kinds of attractions.

Apart from its five hundred villages, the area counts more than 100 very clean beaches on the northern and southern coasts, a hundred mountain tops and 1500 caves, as well as countless monuments and gorges of incomparable wilderness and beauty in Europe. More than sixty small and bigger gorges, easy or difficult of access, are situated in the Prefecture of Chania, and that is why the city is often called "the Locus of Gorges".

These gorges, with their wild beauty and unpolluted environment stir strong emotions of awe and wonderment. The passage of one of these gorges offers unforgettable experiences and certainly makes you wish to cross another gorge during a next visit in Chania. 

Apart from its wilderness and beauty, Chania presents a number of other interests also: legends about dragons and fairies, about good and bad spirits that dwell in the gorges. There are limpid water sources or picturesque Byzantine churches in such places where famous oracles or pantheons formerly took place.

There are heroic stories about the rebels who, from the gorges, drove the Roman, Arab, Venetian, Turkish or Nazi invaders out of the Cretan land. Tragic stories as well, about battles and about thousands of women and children who found refuge from the aggressors in these gorges, and many other stories. 

If you look more attentively, you will distinguish the vestiges of the people who used to live in the gorges: sheepcotes, water mills and hydro-saws, lime or coal furnaces, guardhouses erected for defence against the various incursions, and many other things.

These gorges were mainly formed on carbonic rock beds, i.e. limestone, marbles and dolomites, as a result of a deep fissure in the earth's crust and of the corrosive activity of the waters of the rivers. They were formed about 14 million years ago, at the end of the Miocene period of the Cainozoic century.

Herewith, a summary description provides the necessary information concerning 17 of these gorges, which does not mean that the other gorges are devoid of beauties and of interest.

You can choose which gorge you have the time or the opportunity to visit and we wish you a NICE WALK.