Elafonisi, where the deers once tread…

A beach shaped like a deer’s head with antlers…

Elafonisi, literally meaning “deer island”, is located on the southwestern corner of Crete in the Mediterranean. The island is a protected nature reserve. The highest tip of the area has a plaque that commemorates the slaughter of several hundreds of Greeks – mostly women, children and the elderly – by Turkish soldiers of the Ottoman empire. In another area, a wooden cross commemorates a shipwreck from February 22, 1907.