Photo Essay: Risking life for 6 lomographic shots of the secret Beach de Palm

There are forbidden places on Earth from human eyes and you have to be strong enough to reach it. There are unknown beaches, which you can find on map just pointing your finger on it but not by yourself (on foot or by car). So that’s how my story started – I just realized that I need to find a little piece of quiet land near the warm Libyan Sea in Crete island in Greece.

There is clear evidence of a natural mountain river and a little sandy beach on the Google maps, but you can not find it on map. After speaking with the locals, I did get the name of it – Beach de Palm at Preveli. The trip started through the mountains, but as I reached the south coast of Crete, the asphalt disappeared and I could find the rocky road just deeper into mountains – the road is for donkeys, not for cars, but my passion for finding it was too strong and extremely hot weather did not let me go there on foot. So I did drive on that donkey road, but only at such low speed that you could actually walk faster. If you drive not careful, you fall down from the mountain (expect at least 200 somersaults and flips, and of course, I can not assure that anyone will still be alive). As I’ve said, it’s really difficult to get there – and it takes about an hour to drive a 5 km long distance. Only rocks and mountains, no towns, no people, nothing! But when you get to the sea, the view is outstanding.

And then you realize one thing – it‘s still not your destination. You leave your car near the sea and start climbing up the mountains on foot. You go about 2 km on the cliffs (while the water is just on the side of you, only 100 meters down) and keep your breathing… And finally – the view of the beach. Small rocky beach, with a river just from the mountains, lots of real palm trees (it’s not usual to see them in Europe) and so on. You find it interesting, why there are some people? Maybe you aren’t alone in extreme-expeditions? But they did get there by boats (only very rich people can afford that in Crete island), because only some extreme-kids can come here on foot or by car. The beach? After such a journey you find it naturally fantastic, outstanding and the best place on Earth… but after 5 minutes you realize, that you have to go back the same route… Damn! Was it worth all those extreme things? 1000 times YES! Wind, palms, river, sea, small beach, rocks – the story which ended into 6 lomographic shots with the old-school Zenit-E camera.