Spinalonga

I'm not sure how it happened that we decided to stay in Elounda on Crete. Part of the decision was based on Murray's desire to visit some ruins that lie to the south. Part was to visit the north coast of the island and yet not be in a large city like Hiraklion or Rthimno. Elounda looked like a place that might work. On a friend's recommendation (thanks Sarah) I read "The Island", a novel by British author Victoria Hyslop that focuses on the lives of some people who were sent to live on Spinalonga. Spinalonga is a small island that sits at the mouth of the bay near Elounda. In the late 16th century, the Venetians built an important defensive sea fortress on the island. Over the years, the island was occupied by Turks, Venetians, and Muslims. In 1903 it was established as a leper colony. Originally, lepers coming only from Crete were deported here but once Crete became part of Greece in 1913, lepers from all over Greece were sent to Spinalonga. When the leper colony closed in 1957, it was the last colony of its kind in all of Europe.  It made us think of D'arcy Island, off the southern tip of Vancouver Island, which was also used as a leper colony for Chinese immigrants between 1894 and 1924.
We took a boat from Elounda's harbour and sailed to the dock at Spinalonga. Walking through the tunnel which was the entrance to the leper colony, it was humbling to think of all those folk who had been sent through the same tunnel to live out the remainder of their lives on this small, arid rock in the Mediterranean. Numerous people--men, women, and children-- lived, worked, married (some even had children), and eventually died on the island of Spinalonga. For us, the visit raised more questions than it answered about leprosy, exile, community and hope.
Susan