The Topolia Tunnel ….. the only tunnel in Crete that is dug by hands!
This is a project that was executed during Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos.
It is 4 meters wide and about 100 meters long. The feature of the particular tunnel is that it fits only one car in the direction of the road, resulting in the two traffic lights entering it and regulating the entry per side.
Its construction, according to the inhabitants of the village that lived then and some of them participated in its construction, must have begun around 1920.
In most places, it was not dug but literally carved on the rock. A rock solid of limestone that when it crumbles it smells like a gunpowder. Large rocks were blown up and fallen into the depths. The workers worked in the sun or even in the rain and in the terrible stream of air formed, often tied from their waist with ropes, the other end of which lay in a strong bush root or a rock.
For the tunnel at the beginning they thought they did not need building, since they were all carved on the rock. However, water continued to flow from several points and several times cut off rocks and dirt and fell down the road. So it was later decided to build it.
