River and Lake Almyros

The spring of Almyros (Pigi tou Almyros) is located at the northeastern tip of Psiloritis. It is only a few hundred metres from the beach of Ellinoperamata, 8km east of the city of Heraklion and near Gazi.

The spring, known as Mati, provides the most considerable amount of any other spring in Crete, and the water is directed to the sea through the wetland of the Almyros river. Because it mixes with seawater somewhere deep in the earth, the water is brackish, except for a few months in winter when it is sweet and drinkable. Research has shown that two main aquifers supply the Almyros spring. The Psiloritis mountain range and its plateaus, such as Nida, from where the water may take nine hours to reach the source, and the other is from the surrounding mountains. Most of the water comes from the sinkholes of Psiloritis, from which, through underground rivers (caves) and at great depth, it ends at the source. There, a large rift, the Tylissos - Krousonas rift that delimits Psiloritis from the Heraklion plain, traps the water, "forcing" it to rise to the surface, already mixed with the seawater!

The supply of the source ranges from 3 to 40 cubic metres per second, depending on the time of year. A small artificial lake was formed near the spring in 1977 to raise the water and reduce the salinity due to hydrostatic pressure, an attempt that failed. Watermills used to operate here to grind the area grain. From here, the river Almyros, which ends in the sea in a short distance, after forming one of the most important wetlands in the whole of Crete, begins.

In the Almyros wetland, one can meet many birds, depending on the season, and clusters of the typical Cretan palm (Phoenix theophrasti) found mainly in Crete.