Old watchtowers

Agrio mandra is a small gorge with vertical sides which leads to a beach in the beautifull Mirabello bay. It is a secluded, beautifully wild spot ideal for solitary people.

It used to harbour small ships from Piraeus and other ports of Crete which came to this natural port of Agriomandra up till the Second World War to take on local products such us olive oil, olive pit, and locust-beans brought to the spot by horse and cart and through the stone-paved street still existing to the south side.

On the north rocky side of the gorge the visitors can see the cave church of Saint John made by an ascetic who found in this spot a magnificent place to communicate with God and fight evil. Next ot the church there is a second cave he used as a lodging place.

This cave church has been registered in a book "Iera Spilaia tis Kritis" (Sacred Caves of Crete) by Paul Faure, a French professor of the Greek language and Civilization, with the only observation that it bears fresco signs.

On the south side of Agriomandra in a surface survey carried out by the archaiologist Donald Hagis (1988-1996) were discovered ruins of a farmstead of MMI-II period.

Cave church of Saint John made by an ascetic who found in this spot a magnificent place to communicate with God and fight evil. Next ot the church there is a second cave he used as a lodging place.

This cave church has been registered in a book "Iera Spilaia tis Kritis" (Sacred Caves of Crete) by Paul Faure, a French professor of the Greek language and Civilization, with the only observation that it bears fresco signs.