Spinalonga: Crete's Fortress Island and Former Leper Colony

The Venetian Fortress

Venice held Crete from 1210, and Spinalonga was among the republic's last major fortification projects on the island. Engineers surveyed the islet in 1574, the Provveditore generale di Candia Luca Michiel laid the fortress's foundation stone in 1579, and the hilltop defences were strengthened further by 1584. The result sealed the Gulf of Elounda, guarding the salt pans and the approach to Elounda and Agios Nikolaos further inland.

A church was added in 1709, though it did not survive the fighting of the last Ottoman-Venetian war.

The Ottoman Village

Venice ceded the island to the Ottomans by agreement in 1715 rather than losing it by force. Roughly 80 Muslim families lived inside the fortress walls by 1830, running Spinalonga as a fortified trading village rather than a garrison alone. Most left after the Ottoman defeat of 1898, and the last households departed by 1903, the same year Greek authorities declared the island Crete's leper colony.

Mandatory Isolation

Greece declared isolation on Spinalonga mandatory in 1903, and the first group of 251 patients with leprosy (Hansen's disease) arrived in October 1904. Patients largely built and ran their own community inside the old fortress walls: shops, a cinema, a radio and a small administration, repairing the Ottoman-era houses they inherited. A disused mosque on the island was repaired and converted into a medical unit in 1928.

The Brotherhood and the Path

Patients organised their own welfare society and petitioned for improvements themselves. In 1938 they won permission to build a path around the island's perimeter, built specifically so that residents disabled by the disease could get around without crossing the steeper central ground. Two residential blocks the Brotherhood built each held 24 rooms, among the more substantial housing on the island.

The End of the Colony

Mandatory isolation rules were formally lifted in 1955 once antibiotic treatment made leprosy curable, though the colony kept operating a little longer. In 1957 the remaining patients were transferred to the Agia Varvara anti-leprosy station near Athens, and Spinalonga's medical use ended. The last resident, a priest named Chrysanthos Katsouloyiannakis who chose to stay on, left the island in 1962.

Nobody has lived on Spinalonga since.

The Tunnel Entrance

Boats land at a jetty leading into a vaulted stone tunnel through the fortress wall, the island's main gate. A popular nickname for this tunnel claims it reads "Dante's Gate" or carries an inscription about abandoning hope, but Wikipedia's sourced account states plainly that no historical evidence supports either the inscription or that name. The one documented nickname researcher Maurice Born recorded for a different stretch of the island was the far plainer, and bleaker, "Boulevard of Pain," on the northwestern side.

The Colony Street and Houses

Past the tunnel, a street of restored stone houses climbs toward the fortress's higher ground, repaired from the Ottoman-era buildings the patients inherited and, in places, extended with the Brotherhood's own two 24-room residential blocks. Small shops, a former cinema and the converted mosque that served as the island's medical unit from 1928 sit along the route.

The Bastions and the Cemetery

The upper circuit follows the Venetian defences, blockhouses at the island's northern and southern high points connected by a coastal fortification ring, with views back across the Gulf of Elounda to Plaka and the Lasithi mountains. A cemetery near the settlement holds the colony's dead; the bones were moved into an ossuary beside the graveyard in 2013 as part of the site's ongoing conservation.

Agios Nikolaos

The biggest town of the three and the widest choice of boats, including the swim-stop crossing and the longer catamaran day. Agios Nikolaos also has its own sights, Lake Voulismeni and the harbour, so it suits travellers who want to combine the boat with a town visit either side of it.

Elounda and Plaka

Elounda and the smaller village of Plaka sit closer to Spinalonga itself, Plaka being the shortest physical crossing of the three. The intercity bus network serves Plaka directly, with Agios Nikolaos-Plaka buses running several times a day per the regional timetable, which makes a car-free visit from Agios Nikolaos genuinely workable if you would rather not book a combined tour.

No Public Ferry

None of the three routes is a scheduled public ferry. Every boat to Spinalonga is run by a private operator, and the island itself has no dock built for anything larger than the tour boats that already serve it. Book your specific departure point in advance rather than assuming you can switch towns on the day.

The table below is our own routing, based on the boat schedules and the walking distance around the island, not an official figure.

• The famous "Dante's Gate" nickname for the tunnel entrance has no historical basis. No inscription or name like it is documented; the one recorded nickname for part of the island, "Boulevard of Pain," was far grimmer and applied to a different stretch (Wikipedia, citing researcher Maurice Born).
• Patients ran a functioning town inside the fortress, with their own shops, a cinema and a radio, rather than living in a bare medical camp (Wikipedia).
• A disused Ottoman-era mosque on the island was repaired and converted into the colony's medical unit in 1928, reusing Ottoman-period buildings rather than new construction (Wikipedia).
• Residents petitioned for and won permission in 1938 to build their own perimeter path, built specifically for patients whose mobility the disease had affected (Wikipedia).
• The colony's cemetery was disturbed as recently as 2013, when the remains were moved into a purpose-built ossuary beside the graveyard as part of ongoing conservation work (Wikipedia).

The simplest version is a half-day from Agios Nikolaos: the boat with a swim stop crosses in the morning, you walk the island for 1.5 to 2 hours, and you are back on dry land by early afternoon with time left for the town's own harbour and Lake Voulismeni. Travellers who want more water time take the catamaran option, which turns the crossing into a half-day on the Mirabello gulf with lunch included. For a longer day that leaves the coast entirely, the day trip that pairs Agios Nikolaos and Spinalonga together suits visitors staying further away, such as around Heraklion or the Hersonissos resorts, since the coach handles the drive out and back.

If you are already inland at the Cave of Zeus or Knossos, Spinalonga works as a second, lighter stop the following day rather than the same one, given the drive times between east and central Crete.