Wade into a lagoon with pink in its sand

Balos is the lagoon at the far west end of Crete that turns up on every poster of the island: water shallow enough to wade, in more than one color at once, over sand with pink in it.

The way there is a boat out of Kissamos. Along the cliffs of the gulf runs an old shoreline, well above today's, left there when an earthquake lifted the west end of Crete out of the sea. The first stop is Gramvousa, an islet with a Venetian fortress on top, and Balos is a short sail on.

Then about two and a half hours ashore, which is mostly spent standing in the water. It is busy at midday. It is still Balos.

The earthquake that raised the coast struck on 21 July 365 and lifted parts of the island by up to nine meters. At Falasarna, a few kilometers down the same coast, it left a Greek harbor high and dry in a field.