Elounda waterfront and the Olous causeway

Elounda sits on the inner corner of Mirabello Bay, sheltered by the Spinalonga peninsula, which is why the water in front of it is usually flat when the open coast is not. The quay is still a working one — small boats, nets, a couple of tavernas — and behind the village stretches the cluster of five-star hotels that made this coast famous.

The photographic asset is just south of the village, where a short causeway crosses to the peninsula past a line of ruined stone windmills that once worked the salt pans. Underneath the shallows on either side lie the walls of Olous, a sunken Greco-Roman town: on a calm day the stonework is clearly visible a foot below the surface, which makes an unusual foreground and an easy story for the couple to stand in.

Light comes across the bay from the east in the morning and lands on the village late; the windmills silhouette well against the last of it. The causeway is narrow, shared with cars, and the water beside it is shallow but rocky — reef shoes if anyone is going in, and keep off the exposed masonry, which is a protected site.