Preveli Beach: The Palm Forest, the River and the Monastery Above It

The Palm Forest and the River

Preveli's Greek name, Finikodasos tis Prevelis, translates to the Preveli palm forest, and the beach sits in the municipality of Agios Vasilios in the Rethymno regional unit, per Wikipedia. The Megas Potamos river flows down through the Kourtaliotiko Gorge, joins Preveli Gorge, and reaches the Libyan Sea at the beach, forming a small lake behind the sand in places. The palms lining the river are Phoenix theophrasti, the Cretan date palm, found natively in only a handful of groves on the island, which is what gives the setting its unusually tropical feel for Greece.

The Stone of Lovers and the Odysseus Legend

A heart-shaped rock on the beach is known locally as the Stone of Lovers, per Wikipedia's entry on the beach. Local legend also places Odysseus here, saying the king of Ithaca rested in the wider area, then called Lake Preveli, on his way home from Troy, a story Wikipedia records as legend rather than history.

The Eastern Path From Palm Beach

Several visitor trip reports describe a shorter, less steep path down from the eastern side, near what hikers call Palm Beach, as the easier of the two approaches. This is not an official trailhead with posted distances or times, simply the route most accounts recommend to avoid the harder climb on the western side.

The Western Car Park

The main car park and the more commonly signed route sit on the western side, but trip reports describe this path as longer and considerably steeper, a one-lane approach road that several accounts single out as unsuitable for anyone uncomfortable with narrow mountain driving. Visitors who want the gentler walk down often choose the eastern approach instead, even if it means a longer drive to reach that side.

By Boat From Plakias

The beach is also accessible by boat from the port town of Plakias, per Wikipedia, which avoids the walk down entirely for visitors coming from that direction. This is the option most tour operators and local boat trips use rather than the car park routes.

A Medieval Foundation

Preveli Monastery was probably founded in the Middle Ages, during the Venetian occupation of Crete, by a feudal lord named Prevelis, whose name the monastery, the gorge and the beach all carry today, per Wikipedia. Its full official name is the Holy Stavropegiac and Patriarchal Monastery of St John the Theologian. The monastery was destroyed in 1821 during the Greek War of Independence under the leadership of Abbot Melchissedek Tsouderos, then rebuilt, and it was active again in organising rebellions against Ottoman rule in 1866 and 1878.

The Battle of Crete, 1941

During the 1941 Battle of Crete, Abbot Agathangelos Lagouvardos helped supply British, Australian and New Zealand troops on the island and sheltered them at the monastery, per Wikipedia. Australian soldiers were evacuated by submarine directly from Preveli beach below, and German forces later destroyed the monastery's lower buildings in retaliation. Monuments at the site today commemorate that wartime assistance, several of them financed by the Australian veterans who were rescued.

Visiting Today

The monastery today comprises two complexes, the ruined lower monastery of St John the Baptist and the active upper monastery of St John the Theologian, which holds religious relics and icons in heavily restored buildings open to visitors, per Wikipedia. No official page we reached publishes a current entry fee or opening hours, so confirm both locally if you plan to visit the monastery itself rather than just the beach below it.

Every routing assumes you are coming for the beach first, with the monastery as an optional add-on.

The Fire

A large fire broke out in the Preveli area in the early hours of a Sunday and destroyed almost 70 percent of the palm forest, per Wikipedia's sourced account. For a grove already rare on Crete, that kind of loss looked close to permanent at the time.

An Unusual Recovery

The Cretan date palm turned out to carry a fire resistance not widely recognised before the 2010 fire, and the forest managed to regenerate within the following autumn, not only sprouting new growth but keeping many of the same burned adult palms alive, per Wikipedia. New seeds also sprouted afterward, and local efforts to protect the recovering area from grazing and trampling supported the natural regrowth.

By Road

Travel guides commonly describe the drive from Rethymno as routed through Kourtaliotiko Gorge, worth stopping at for its own viewpoints, though we have no official distance or timing source to confirm an exact figure for the route. Treat any drive time you see quoted elsewhere as an estimate rather than an official one.

By Boat From Plakias

Plakias is the usual boat departure point for Preveli beach, per Wikipedia, and several of the guided options on this page, including the 4x4 safari, also run from the broader Rethymno and Plakias area rather than requiring you to drive the narrow car park roads yourself.

• The palms lining the river are Phoenix theophrasti, the Cretan date palm, native to only a handful of groves on the entire island (Wikipedia).
• A 2010 fire destroyed almost 70 percent of the palm forest, but the species' own fire resistance let it regrow within a single season (Wikipedia).
• Australian soldiers were evacuated by submarine directly from Preveli beach during the 1941 Battle of Crete, after the monastery's abbot sheltered them (Wikipedia).
• German forces destroyed the monastery's lower buildings in retaliation for that wartime assistance, and several of today's commemorative monuments were funded by the rescued Australian veterans themselves (Wikipedia).
• Preveli beach is not on the 2026 Blue Flag list, unlike nearby Plakias, which carries the award twice over for two separate stretches of its coastline (blueflag.gr, read 2026-10-02).