Agia Pelagia ( el, Αγία Πελαγία, "

Saint Pelagia Pelagia ( grc-gre, Πελαγία), distinguished as Pelagia of Antioch, Pelagia the Penitent, and Pelagia the Harlot, was a Christian saint and hermit in the 4th or 5th century. Her feast day was celebrated on 8 October, originally in common wi ...

") is a popular seaside resort in the municipality of

Malevizi Malevizi ( el, Μαλεβίζι) is a municipality in Heraklion regional unit, Crete, Greece. The seat of the municipality is the town of Gazi. The municipality has an area of . Municipality The municipality Malevizi was formed at the 2011 local g ...

, 23 km northwest of Crete's capital city of

Heraklion Heraklion or Iraklion ( ; el, Ηράκλειο, , ) is the largest city and the administrative capital of the island of Crete and capital of Heraklion regional unit. It is the fourth largest city in Greece with a population of 211,370 (Urban A ...

. In former times, Agia Pelagia was a tiny fishing village and a place for the residents of nearby Achlada village to grow their crops. Today, the village built at the center of a picturesque amphitheatric bay has been transformed into a bustling tourist resort featuring five-star hotels, traditional seaside tavernas, cafes, bars, internet cafés, ATMs, and souvenir shops. The village takes its name from the homonymous church, in the Monastery of the Sebbathians, ruins of which are found at a distance of 1 km west of the village. The beaches of the village are popular with locals and tourists because they are sheltered by the rock outcroppings that almost encircle Agia Pelagia Bay. Agia Pelagia was heavily damaged by the

2022 Greek floods In October 2022, Crete, the largest island of Greece was hit by destructive floods. The floods were triggered by a large thunderstorm and heavy rains. Two fatalities were reported along with of rain falling within less 12 hours. Response On 15 ...

Archaeology

The first major excavations at Agia Pelagia were carried out at Cape Souda, near Evresi Cave, by Sir Arthur Evans. It was archaeologist

Stylianos Alexiou Stylianos Alexiou ( el, Στυλιανός Αλεξίου, 13 February 1921 – 12 November 2013) was an archaeologist, philologist and university professor. Biography Sylianos Alexiou was born in 1921 in Heraklion, Crete. He came from a learned ...

, along with Dr. Athanasia Kanta, who performed the majority of later research. Alexiou, and others put forward the hypothesis that Agia Pelagia was the site of ancient Panormos (Ancient Greek: Πάνορμος), also known as Aulopotamos (Αὐλοπόταμος). At the north end of Agia Pelagia Bay, remnants of excavations of the Hellenistic town of Apollonia ( grc, Ἀπελλωνία), also Apollonia (Ἀπολλωνία) can still be seen. The legendary archaeologist John Pendlebury classified surface finds discovered at Agia Pelagia as "implied" proof of a Late Minoan settlement there. Post-Minoan graves and the University ( Prtanion) of the 4th century BC were found in 1970 at the site "Kladistos" or "Kladotos". Also, there is a nearby cave, with the name "Evresi", where - according to legend - local people found the icon of Agia Pelagia. The village also has outcrops of

blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...

- greenschist rock which was quarried and used to pave streets and floors of

Minoan The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from 3500BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000BC, and then declining from 1450B ...

palace A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...

s between 1650 and 1600 BC.

References

{{Coord, 35.406821, 25.018487, display=title Populated places in Heraklion (regional unit) Malevizi