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Gournes Taxi Transfer

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From Heraklion airport to Gournes, we offer transportation with taxi, minivan or minibus at preferential prices, with our 20-year experience. Make your booking without credit card fees, and get a discount on the movement of your return

Gournes is 15 kilometres east of Heraklion. As you continue east along the old road from Heraklion to Kokkini Hani, the adjoining village is Gournes, which is quite small in comparison, and limited in its facilities.
The name Gournes comes from "gourna" meaning “basin”, and it is thought that there were many watering-places in the area at one time. The evidence still exists, as a "river" basin still runs through the centre of town. In the summer months, however, it is quite dry, but in the winter rainy season, and during the spring thaw, water rushes through here from the surrounding mountains to the sea below.

There are no big hotels in Gournes, but there are several nice smaller hotels, plus tourist apartments and rent-rooms. Gournes was a small, sleepy village until the late fifties, when the big American Air Force communications (no planes) base opened, occupying a substantial portion of the town property.

While the base population eventually grew to about 3,500 servicemen and their families, the surrounding area kept pace. Many of the first hotels and apartments were built in Gournes to accommodate the families of the servicemen and visitors to the base and its civilian work force.

When the Gournes base closed in 1993, the area was a bit shell-shocked, as about 1,000 locals became unemployed and hundreds of apartments and rooms were vacated.
 
Buildings of the former US base are used today as residences of Greek Airforce officers
 
Since then, Gournes has fought its way back economically, making a good name for itself as a quiet holiday destination, as well as a place where many people from Heraklion maintain their summer homes. The enormous base property with a frontage of 500 meters along the main road is finally showing signs of a new life. After lying dormant for many years, there is now a school, a gymnasium, a municipal town hall and an exhibition centre, plus the Crete Aquarium “Thalassokosmos” (Sea World), which is among the finest in Europe.

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