Perivolia – Rethymno’s seaside suburb and a place of remembrance

Perivolia – the coastal suburb of Rethymno

Perivolia lies on the coast immediately next to the centre of Rethymno. With Misiria and Platanes it is one of the three contiguous suburbs east of the town, three to five kilometres from the centre. These were once separate settlements, and are now felt to be part of the urban fabric. Hotels and apartment blocks alternate with small family-run places to stay, and rooms are let in private houses as well, in the homes of long-established families. The sandy beach is equipped for bathing and for water sports, with sunshades, showers and lifeguards; tavernas and hire stands line the shore road. The water is shallow, but the bay is open to the north and there are waves more often than not.

The name Perivolia (Περιβόλια) means simply ‘gardens’ or ‘orchards’, and recalls the rural character this stretch of coast long had. The flat, well-watered alluvial land at the gates of the town was cultivated as garden ground for centuries and supplied Rethymno with vegetables and fruit. Building has by now almost closed the gap with the town, yet anyone who turns off the coast road into the side lanes will still find the remains of old gardens and small farmsteads among the new houses.

Destruction and rebuilding: the memory of the place

The history of Perivolia is closely bound up with the Cretan risings of 1866, 1878, 1889 and 1896. Because Rethymno, as a fortified town, long remained under Ottoman control while the insurgents held the hinterland, the settlement outside the town walls was caught again and again between the lines. In 1896 the houses of the Christians were destroyed; many of the inhabitants managed to escape in time to the districts of Amari and Mylopotamos and came back only when things had quietened down.

Perivolia suffered again in the Battle of Crete in May 1941. German paratroops of the 2nd Parachute Regiment under Colonel Alfred Sturm, dropped in the Rethymno sector on 20 May, were meant to take the town and its airfield. Part of the force came down among the Australians and was largely destroyed; the rest landed, as planned, west of Platanes around Perivolia, scattered a battalion of Greek reservists and tried at about six that evening to push into Rethymno, only to be thrown back by the Greek gendarmerie and armed civilians, several priests and a monk among them. A second attempt the next day failed in the same way, and the paratroops dug in in the village and at the church of St George (Agios Georgios), turning it into their defensive position. For days Australian and Greek units tried in vain to break this bar between the airfield and the town, shelling it and even laying out captured signal panels to draw German bombers on to their own men. On 23 and 24 May there were mass shootings of civilians in Perivolia and in neighbouring Misiria. The victims on the beach at Misiria numbered 110, twelve of them women; for Perivolia itself a memorial service is held each year for 33 who were shot. In the list of the martyred villages of Crete, which goes back to a Greek government report of 1945, Perivolia is named alongside Misiria, Stavromenos, Chamalevri, Asteri and Pangalochori. The settlement, wrecked by the war, was rebuilt; the memory of those days lives on in the testimony of local people and in the work of regional historians.

Perivolia today

Today Perivolia is a busy resort on the edge of Rethymno. The broad sandy beach, the tavernas, the hire of beach and sports equipment and the closeness of the old town – quickly reached on foot or by town bus – make the quarter a convenient base. Its position beside Misiria, Platanes and historic Rethymno also shows very clearly how former farming villages have turned, little by little, into districts of a town.