Nisida Spinalonga Travel Guide

Anybody visiting Crete really should visit the island of Spinalonga which lies a little way off the North East coast of the island.

Spinalonga has an amazing history, and has served as many things over the years. The name, incidentally, comes from two Venetian words meaning long thorn.

Initially a hugely impressive and still extant Venetian stronghold and fort (from 1579) guarding the sea routes, the island remained unconquered even when the Turks invaded Crete in 1715 and was a haven for the Cretan resistance and other assorted Christians.

Looking at the huge emplacements still there, especially approached from the sea, it is easy to understand why the Turks never conquered the place. Sheer cliffs give way to monstrous fortifications and any attack would have been positively suicidal.

Please also see my Spinalonga2 page for details of the later history of the island.

Perhaps the island's greatest "claim to fame", if it can be called such, is that it was a leper colony, in fact the last leper colony in Europe. From the early 20th century until 1957 those unfortunate enough to be afflicted with that awful disease were confined on the island in conditions that were, frankly, appalling. Those still on the island in 1957 were moved to a hospital in Athens.

A large portion of the island, crumbling into ruin now, was devoted to the accomodation of the lepers. Supplies were landed by boat at a gate close by where the tourist boats now dock. A walk round what was the leper village is a remarkable experience. The obvious living quarters are small, sparse and somehow incredibly sad.

My picture shows the cooking facilities for a household of lepers. Everything was cooked in or round the forno (oven).

The "new" hospital, dating from the 1930's and built somewhat incongruously of concrete, is now crumbling away. In it's day, I suppose it was a great improvement on the existing facilities, but I found it profoundly depressing.

I left the island, with the sun setting very prettily over the hills of Crete, musing on the fact that people were still required to live in this fashion a mere two years before I was born.

Spinalonga, with it's long and varied history is an absolute "must see" for anyone vvisiting Crete.

I have described the very moving experience of walking round the now deserted leper colony of Spinalonga, and how simple things like an oven brought home to me how appalling conditions must have been for the unfortunates living there. Perhaps, and somewhat obviously, the saddest thing for me on the island was the lepers graveyard.

As you leave the boat, it is situated a short way up the hill on your right. Whilst it is an undeniably pretty spot to be buried, it struck me as particularly sad that the relatives of the dead would never have been able to visit the graves, such was the isolation imposed upon lepers at that time. My photograph shows the graveyard.

If you visit the island, it is worth spending a few moments there reflecting on the miserable lives and lonely deaths of those who inhabited the place for all those years not so terribly long ago.