Paralia Agia Pelagia

This guide to Paralia Agia Pelagia near Heraklion follows a Saint's Day ritual once held on this beach, when believers buried themselves up to the neck in the sand hoping it would heal them, and the small icon of Saint Pelagia said to have been found in a cave at the bay's edge. It traces the vanished monastery the icon was tied to, and the working boats that carried wood and coal along this shore until 1965. The cave itself, known locally as Evresi, or discovery, still cuts into the rock at the beach's northern edge.