Just back from a week in Crete. Excellent weather, blue skies and +25C daily. £400 a head Easyjet flights, checked luggage, transfers and 4* all inclusive. Got a deal from QWERTY Travel thru Travel Zoo.
Petrol €1.89 a litre, diesel € 1.49. National speed limit 90 Kph, lower in built up areas as normal. Roads pretty rubbish except a for a dual carriageway which runs along the North side of the island. Driving OK but plenty of impatient locals overtaking on double lines and blind bend to get past mimsing tourists in underpowered hire cars!
Where I was staying (Heronisos) there was a 2 mile main drag full of car and quad bike hire and all very cheap. Lots of Peugeot convertibles and near my hotel there was a firm with 2 E class convertibles and an Aston Martin one as well. The point of these on those roads escapes me! I didn't even look at the daily rates and the CDW XS!
I had a pretty dire Huyundai ATOZ, £53 for 3 days booked from UK. I could have saved a bit by booking locally and, as the island closes for tourism on 26th Oct there were a lot of 70% off offers for the end of season.
Any further info, please feel free to email me. A very pleasant break although I was lucky with the weather, apparently
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What hotel did you stay at ?
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Meldrew old chap..... I have been visiting Crete for many years....
If you ever go to Crete again can I suggest you do not go to the East of the Island ...
Hersonissos , full of dodgy East Europeans .....
Malia - full of drunken Brits.....
West is best......lots of lovely beaches , fish tavernas, mountains, gorges , spectacular scenery.
I do not stay in a hotel but always arrange my own flights , car hire and rent an apartment...
Used to rent a Jimny or similar and get up into the mountains but for the last couple of years just had an Atoz to get me from Chania airport and back & poodle around in.
Last edited by: helicopter on Tue 22 Oct 13 at 09:57
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One of the hotels in the Aquis Chain - the Aquis Silva in Heronissos. A good hotel and excellent value for money, goo.gl/maps/DLgHm
No dodgy Easy Europeans in Heronissos in the last 2 weeks of the "season"!
Last edited by: Meldrew on Tue 22 Oct 13 at 09:58
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Hope it was nicer than the Palace Hotel in Ells Bells.
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We stayed in another of their hotels further east in the middle of nowhere really. It was OK - certainly not too many tattoos, dress code was a bit odd though, Home Shirt for Lunch and the Away Strip for Dinner....joking apart it was a good deal last year through QWERTY - great place to read about the battle for Crete.
Last edited by: R.P. on Tue 22 Oct 13 at 10:18
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Maybe not at the seasons end ......but this is what it is like generally......my idea of hell.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAT0im42K-s
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I am sure you are right helicopter, judging by the number of Karaoke bars and bars/clubs with full time happy hours etc! Malia appears to be the centre of young people's boozing and lechery, from what I read.
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We got back from Crete two weeks ago. We stayed near to where Meldrew was - Piskopiano. I wouldn't want to be down in Hersonissos in the evening/night but it was okay in the day. And we avoided Malia totally (although visited the Minoan ruins near there). We were also close to the Old Hersonissos Village and Koutouloufari.
We also flew with Easy Jet and had transfers etc. A cheap two week holiday (accommodation was about £9/night and was good by Greek standards). We got a hire car locally and actually paid more than Meldrew but that included full insurance, CDW, etc. and no excess. We ended up with a Hyundai i10.
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This is a video of touring the west of Crete ........not made by me but I have been to most of the places shown and it gives a good idea of what it is like to drive there and also some of the steep drops waiting the unwary if you take your eyes off the road.....
My idea of the real Crete as opposed to the tourist traps ......
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEuRuhbs5m0
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You are totally correct! I went for a look-see and I will try the West when I go back again, which I am sure I will! Oddly enough, I was reading the autobiography of an English soldier called Paddy Leigh-Fermor who was very active in Crete in WW2, organising the Greek resistance. He even master-minded the successful kidnap the German general and getting him to Egypt. Still remembered by the very old locals in the interior villages, apparently
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Meldrew - The book to which you refer was made into the film 'Ill met by Moonlight'
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ill_Met_by_Moonlight
There are a number of the interior villages where there are memorials to the villagers who were massacred by the Germans during the war......and some of the old mountain men have very long memories.......
Worth visiting the beautifully kept British War Cemetery at Souda Bay and indeed the German Cemetery at Maleme....
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A former colleague of mine, 6 foot, blonde, blue eyes but as British as they get was present at the Commonwealth war cemetery by chance during a British Regimental re-Union and Memorial Service. He got talking to some veterans of the Campaign, asked why he was there he said his Grandfather fought in the campaign, he was a pilot he said, flying Junkers 52s.......there was a slight pregnant pause, but they welcomed him just the same....added to his classic Aryan looks were his very Germanic name - made no difference in the end.
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Notes on a Holiday to Crete - R.P.
