Gramvousa Peninsula


Gramvousa Peninsula is a peninsula at the northwestern end of the island of Crete, Greece. Anciently it was known as Corycus or Korykos, or as Cimarus or Kimaros ; although the latter is ascribed to the cape at the northern extremity of the peninsula. Strabo states that Corycus was the point whence the distances to the several ports of Peloponnesus were measured. We learn from Pliny that the islands which lie off this promontory were called Corycae, and that part of the mass of rock which forms this point went by the name of Mount Corycus. Ptolemy mentions a city also called Corycus, and there is a passage in which Juvenal mentions a Corycian vessel which evidently belonged to this Cretan town. When the Florentine traveller Cristoforo Buondelmonti visited the island in 1415, he found remains existing.