The small village is can be reached via boat or a two-hour hike through stone paths (Image: Getty) A small village two hours south of Chania, Crete , has emerged as a top alternative to avoid sharing the beach with thousands of tourists on the busy beaches of the likes of Santorini . While Crete remains a popular destination much like its smaller sister further north of the Aegean, the small village of Loutro has remained mostly free of the hordes of visitors taking over Santorini's picturesque Oia. The village, located in the southwest of the island, can only be accessed by foot via winding cliff paths or by ferry from larger Chora Sfakia or Agia Roumeli during the summer.

This whitewashed village sits at the base of a steep mountain, with a thigh-burning, 600-metre climb to the summit and the Anapolis plateau. function loadOvpScript(){let el=document.createElement('script');el.

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