No longer the quiet getaway that it once was, Georgioupoli has been swamped by coastal hotel development and is popular with holidaying foreign families.

Nature lovers look beyond the sprawl to appreciate its setting at the junction of the Almyros River and the sea. It’s a nesting area for the endangered loggerhead sea turtle. The marshes surrounding the riverbed are known for bird life, especially egrets and kingfishers which migrate into the area in April. They also produce hordes of mosquitoes in summer.

Picturesque Agios Nikolaos chapel perches on a narrow rocky jetty in the sea. The long narrow stretch of hard-packed sand east of town, spliced by another river leading into the sea, becomes a long sandy beach that continues for about 10km towards Rethymno.