Seeking escape on the Greek isle of Crete

The ship opened its creaky steel doors and lowered the gangplank. We stepped out into warm, ankle-deep seawater. In small groups, we splashed our way across to Balos Beach.

The beach is a narrow strip of pink sand. On one side is a natural wading pool. On the other, the Sea of Crete, striped turquoise, emerald, then sapphire, and surrounded by a ring of dusty cliffs.

The waves are gentle but just feisty enough to elicit a bubbly foam. It's like an amusement park's wave pool as imagined by painter David Hockney.

Balos is the kind of beach you envision lucky tourists stumbling upon by accident. The kind of place you find when you get lost on a hike or if you're lucky enough to sail your own yacht.

And so what's most miraculous about it is that you can easily get there on a cheap tourist day cruise.

Also included in the price are several hours of smooth sailing and a steep but rewarding hike to a 16th-century Venetian fort that once served as a base for Greek pirates.

I had expected Crete to be full of sites as impressive as Balos. After all, it's Greece's most popular destination.

A quarter of the country's visitors head to this mountainous island known for its food — Crete is the birthplace of the Mediterranean diet — its history and its beaches.

Short of hype

But the most hyped destinations didn't quite meet expectations.

Knossos, reputed in Greek mythology to be the palace of King Minos and home to the Minotaur, was a series of re-imagined rooms and temples, many of which came with the disclaimer that they may not have actually looked like that.

Hania, which is advertised as a Venetian town with a maze of streets populated with boutiques and elegant churches, was overrun by traffic and European chain stores.

I also had a bias. Previous travels to the Greek islands had taken me to picture-perfect blue-and-white villages decked with bougainvillea. Crete was more, well, real: The cities were modern; the beaches, many very beautiful, spoiled by tacky holiday developments.

As a traveler, I'm all for seeing the real world. Most of the time. On this trip to Greece, I was seeking escape.

Hiding out

Crete's northwest corner, which includes Balos Beach, fit the bill. For three days, we made our headquarters in Falassarna, a sleepy but functional town.

There's no town center per se, just a string of midpriced hotels, a grocery/souvenir shop, a beach cafe and a restaurant. There are no high-end digs, no high-end anything, for that matter.

We checked into the Plakures, a compound of whitewashed condos, neatly trimmed in Tiffany blue. Each room comes with a wrought-iron bed, a marble floor, functional Ikea-style furniture and a small, well-equipped kitchenette.

Though the area is dry, the hotel property is lush. Gravel pathways that connect the rooms to the pool and restaurant are lined with palm, fig and pomegranate trees.

Owned by a German family, Plakures caters almost exclusively to middle-aged Teutonic couples who want nothing more than to lie in the sun by day and drink beer — lots of it — at night. (The only other guests were my group and a few other young American women who also had been seduced by the hotel's sexy website.)

The contrast between the cerulean sky and the pink, full-figured guests gave me a start at first. But we soon appreciated the bicultural aspect of the hotel, which seamlessly blends the good parts of Greece (the food, the weather) and Germany (intense efficiency and very large breakfast buffets).

Sun and feta

It was easy to fall into a rhythm of sunbathing, swimming and dinners at the hotel, including generous meze platters of feta cheese, grape leaves, lentils and garlicky tzatziki, pork souvlaki and a surprisingly delicious rendition of spaghetti Bolognese.

On our last day in Falassarna, though, we decided to risk being tourists once again with a cruise to Gramvousa Island and Balos Beach.

I'm skeptical of day cruises. Too often, what seems like an attractive itinerary turns out to be a string of third-rate "sights" and long stays at shops owned by the cruise operator's cousin.

Our trip to Gramvousa did not start out auspiciously. The Kissamos ferry terminal, a few miles from Falassarna, has several operators. Ticket agents told us that the price for the eight-hour cruise was 30 euros per person (about $41), three times the price listed in our guidebook. When we feigned to "think about it," the price came down to 20, 15 and then, finally, 10 euros (about $13).

Once we were on the boat, however, everything was as advertised. The ferry cruises to the northwest tip of Crete, a lick of land called Cape Vouxa.

The first stop is the island of Gramvousa. It's a forbidding-looking rock, though the "pirate" ship docked in front gives the place a slightly Disney feel. We considered a dip, but the thin strip of beach is rocky and there's little shade. So we headed up to the island's 16th-century ruined castle instead.

The fortress, built in 1579 by the Venetians, was used to fight the invading Turks until 1692, according to our Blue Guide. It was later used as a base for pirates (hence the pirate ship in the harbor).

You can see why the spot was coveted. It offers 360-degree views of the sea and a prime view of ships crossing from Crete to the island of Antikythera.

Today, the distressed walls and tumbledown arches make an ideal place for holiday snapshots.

Back on the ferry, there was just enough time for a quick lunch before arriving in Balos.

Where an American ferry would serve unappealing hot dogs, chips and sodas at extortionate prices, the Greek equivalent offers a host of fresh, reasonably priced food: fresh Greek salads, chicken souvlaki with delicious roasted potatoes and bowls of fresh red grapes, which we wrapped up for a beach side snack.

Yet another example of how the best of Crete is found in the most unexpected places.