04/26/2026
My first post in over a year. Being "non-Schengen" residents, my wife and I "maxed out" in Schengen over the winter -- we spent it in the Aosta Valley in Italy. Since Schengen has a "maximum 90 days in, then mandatory 90 days out" rule for non-residents, I cannot make my annual May trip to Crete. I do plan on being there for my annual October trip.
The reason for this post...... Gavdos. A small island that is off the south coast of Crete. One of my favourite places of all that I have visited around the world.
Small. 32.4 square kilometres. Year-round population about 100 officially – plus some year-round “campers”. Most tourists tent, but there are a few pensions on the island. Probably about 40 rooms total. A few mini-markets, several small tavernas – many beach-side.
Very rustic. Not for everybody. In fact, probably not for most. But definitely for me.
I just came across this tribute to the island from a gentleman I do not know - Fausto Renzi from Milan. I have edited it. It was a longer piece addressing a particular issue, but it contains a great explanation of why some of us who have been there love Gavdos.
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Gavdos, the last free island in Europe.
I have been to Gavdos three, maybe four times. It is not easy to get there — you have to really want it, take the boat from Paleochora or Sfakia, wait for the weather to allow it, have everything you need with you. And perhaps this difficulty of access is the first form of protection that the island has had over the years.
Gavdos is not given easily. You choose it because you feel free and you want to feel free. In Europe, with our values, our history, our culture — and yet in harmony with Nature, yet always free from the “commercial” compulsions and their distortions, from the “intermediations” that come between you and Nature. This is a treasure, not only for Greece but for the whole of Europe.
.. I speak, of course, as a European and Italian citizen. When you arrive, you immediately understand why you return. It is not only the color of the Libyan Sea, it is not only the cedars that reach almost to the shore, it is not only the absence of artificial light that gives you a sky that you do not see anywhere else in Europe. It is the atmosphere, it is the landscape. Crete watches you from the north, but we are on the other side — we are the guardians of the southern border of our small world, even stubbornly democratic, a bastion of freedom with respect for the Other.
It is the coexistence — unique, fragile, precious — between the few permanent residents, the long-term campers, the passing tourists who can experience for a few days a different world, where a piece of land can finally be what it should be: a common good for all beings on the planet. I like it, I feel good there, I set up my tent with care, taking care to protect the environment and the spirit of the island, the vibrations of everyone I meet on the dunes, in the few cafes.
A balance built over decades, no one designed it, and it works precisely because no one designed it. I miss Gavdos, after a year of absence….. Gavdos has resisted for decades the logic of commercial tourism that has transformed almost every Greek island. Let us not talk about the Italian situation, which is scandalous. I come to Gavdos precisely because there is no large hotel, no nightclub, no beach bar with paid sunbeds, there is no commercial mediation between the visitor and the sea.
This is not accidental: it is the result of choices — or rather, of abstaining from certain choices. This is a value, a value of humanity: to be able to approach Beauty without someone stopping you and asking you for a “ticket!” Am I talking about Beauty? About Nature? I have seen and touched the beauty in Gavdos…..”
