Discover AGIOS NIKOLAOS, Crete

The name Agios Nikolaos means Saint Nicholas. The stress lies on the third syllable of the word "Nikolaos". Note that Agios Nikolaos or Ayios Nikolaos is a common place name in Greece and Cyprus since Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors and of all of Greece.

Agios Nikolaos is probably best known as a tourist town that serves as a hub to the twenty or so small villages and farms that make up that part of Lassithi.

Tourist attractions include the small lagoon Lake Voulismeni, small beaches in the town, the tiny island Agioi Pantes, the archaeological museum, the local flora exhibition 'Iris' and numerous fairs.

Tourism is mainly west european with Greek tourism concentrating in mid August.

The lagoon features a small park with a trail, traditional fishing boats, ducks, pigeons, an amphitheatre and many cafes .

Agios Nikolaos is accessible from the mainland and the whole of Europe through Nikos Kazantzakis airport and many daily ferry services in Heraklion. Two ships connect Aghios Nikolaos daily with the ports of Piraeus and the Dodecanese.

Recently the town became host of a department of a Technological Educational Institute (TEI) with tourism related courses.


LAKE VOULISMENI

Lake Voulismeni is a former sweetwater small lake, later connected to the sea, located at the centre of the town of Agios Nikolaos. It has a circular shape of a diameter of 137m and depth 64m.

The locals refer to it as just "the lake". The lake connects to the harbour of the town by a channel dug in 1870. A panoramic view of the lake can be seen from a small park situated above it.

According to legend, the goddess Athena bathed in it.

Every year at midnight turning to Orthodox Christian Easter day, the majority of the population of the town gathers around the lake to celebrate with fireworks, and firecrackers thrown by the people attending that highlight event.

It was reported that the German army during their withdrawal from the area at WW2, disposed parts of their weaponry and/or vehicles into the deep lake.

A local urban legend has it that the lake is bottomless. Based primarily on locals noticing disturbances at the surface of the water during the Santorini (Thera) earthquake of 1956, many assume a possible geological relation of the two locations, but this claim has not been substantiated by any scientific surveys to date.

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