Kambia

As you leave Plaka and follow signs for Kokkino Chorio, you will start to climb up a hill. After about a kilometre, on the bend, turn right in to the tiny hamlet of Kambia. Kambia has about 50 permanent residents.

As always, there is a nice church in the middle of the old houses that form the original village. The older generation of villagers live here along with a few foreign neighbours in adjacent renovated houses.

On the outskirts of the village there are a number of newer houses built on the sides of the hills on the edge of the village. The attraction here is ‘the view’. There are stunning views over the valley below, Souda Bay and of course the wondrous ‘White Mountains’. There are no tavernas or kafenions in Kambia.

In addition to ‘the views’ the attraction of Kambia is that it is very peaceful and only a few minutes from the tavernas in Plaka, Kokkino Chorio and the beaches of Almyrida.

There are no street lights in the village (not unusual in smaller villages) and as a result, very little ‘light pollution’. Because of this, at night, if you look up on the nights when there is not a full moon, the stars are unbelievably bright. And there’s so many of them! The first place I saw the ‘Milky Way’ was in this part of Crete. I’ve sat on the terrace of a house in Kambia (and other villages in this area) watching satellites cross the starry heavens and counted the shooting stars flashing across the sky.

Finally, I feel that I should mention that half way up the hill from Plaka, you can look down to your left and see the large house that was built for ‘Bryan and Andrew’ and featured in the (two) television series ‘A Place in Greece'.

I feel I should mention this because, when I typed into Google the phrase - ‘Brian and Andrew a place in Greece’ there were 1,950,000 results. What a strange race we are! The place is now owned by some people from Norway I think.

Kambia is also the home of the artist Antonios Santorinos. Antonios is internationally famous (90 exhibitions around the world in the last 30 years) and paints on glass. He actually paints on the reverse of the glass. If you see his very individual works you will see their instant attraction. However, if you stop to think about what he has to do to produce the painting, you’ll admire and appreciate his work even more. For example, if he is painting a face on the reverse of the glass, the first thing he would have to paint would be (say) a moustache, the eyes etc – and the last would be the outline of the face and the flesh. Amazing!

View Dreamcatchers properties for sale in the village of Kambia