Word of the week - Crete

Crete

Such a beautiful island and definitely somewhere I would come and visit again, although we do try and see as much of everywhere we can when we holiday as if it is the only time we visit. We are staying in Panormo, almost in the centre of the Island on the north coast, half way between the two airport. Chania in the west and Heraklion where we flew into in the East. 

Cost

Having priced up a fortnight in our campervan with awning to be near the beach coming in at around £1000 and then still having to use communal showers, we decided to book a last minute holiday to Crete for not that much more including flights and transfers with Tui.

Cases

In our cases I packed an extension cable as the plugs are never anywhere near the bed and there are never enough, but we've got plenty in this this hotel and there's even a light over the mirror. I also brought with me a pool float from Aldi that was £5.99. They're on sale here around €20. I packed beach towels bought on a previous trip to Greece and a bath mat for the shower room. We've got 9 books between us and I'm already 4 down.

Clothing

I've packed shorts, t shirts, 2 dresses, swim wear and one set of running gear and packed in cubes. It's all been worn. The beach shoes have been invaluable as the beach is rocky, flip flops as slippers in the room and for going down to breakfast. Both pairs of Birkenstocks to match my outfits and and the trainers for travelling in.

Catering

We're bed and breakfast, but have a small fridge/freezer in the room and we brought a small water boiler and a battery operated whisk so I can make lattes using our espresso maker. I also packed some breakfast cereals, bread rolls and biscuits as I'm gluten free and found a bakers in Heraklion on a day trip and purchased bread and a cake for the second week. We eat out once a day, fish and salads and the other meal is salads with tuna, cheese that we also make up into picnics with fresh fruits and crisps etc using ice blocks made with frozen sponges in zip lock bags and freezing our water bottles. We found a restaurant that made me some gluten free pasta.

Coach Trips and Culture

We booked three coach trips as we discovered on arrival that the Train Station as advertised by Tui 1000ms from the hotel was an actual bus stop for the 20kms to the centre. 

The centre being Rethymno. There is a bus that runs every 30 minutes and tickets are bought from a little shop, you need to buy 2 for each journey and it's called the No 20 Hotel bus. It's a beautiful town with everything you need, an old town and harbour, market on a Thursday, a more modern shopping area and beaches.

Our first coach trip was out to Knossos, the trip was badly organised with a late collection, we had to queue for our own tickets which took almost 40 minutes as the cruise ships were in on the Tuesday and  the tour guide changed the collection time but didn't inform us and took no ownership, then made an announcement on the coach at the end of the trip thanking those for the positivity for not spoiling his day. 

Knossos was absolutely packed, you could hardly move for us tourists. Heraklion city was beautiful, we had 3 and half hours, enough time to explore the Venetian Harbour, have lunch, wander round the shops, sort out some banking, buy souvenirs, get Peter a couple of new t shirts without logos on, find the gluten free bakery, check out some historic sites and grab a Starbucks.

The second trip was a 4 hour hike in Imbros Gorge and a swim in the Libyan sea.

The third trip is to Chania next week. I'll let you know how that goes. We are wondering if we will bump into our neighbours who are there. Peter's oldest friend's daughter is staying not far from us also.

Coast

Our immediate beach is not a good one, it looks pretty and calm but you need to be a strong swimmer just getting out. I am, but without a life guard or other people around I'm not prepared to take the risk and just me and Peter in the shallow water up to our waists we really struggled with the power of the waves getting out as it was rocky and slippy under foot. It was also a very steep and shaley route to get to the beach and access was through another property and a broken fence, not like the images shown on the Tui website. As we can't travel round the Island as we'd hoped forth beach has now become a bit of a priority for the second week and there is a lot more walking to do to access the one in the village.

Cats

Absolutely everywhere and very well cared for, as are all of the islands animals. Sheep, donkeys, dogs and goats and there are so many adverts on local TV, radio and posters around the towns and cities.

Calamity

Thankfully we flew from Birmingham the day before the luggage fiasco, where people waited several days to be reunited with their luggage, the shut down and re routing of flights from Bristol and the problems on the M25 with fires that delayed people getting to Heathrow along with train disruptions over the weekend and the eruption of Etna causing flights to be cancelled.

Post Comment Love - 14th-16th August 2026

Welcome back to #PoCoLo with Stephanie from Bosworth.Life and I.

Post Comment Love #PoCoLo is a friendly weekly linky where you can link up any blog post you've written this week. If you're new or a regular visitor we're sure you'll find something of interest.

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I'll be catching up with reading your posts, sharing and commenting over the next few days. 

Peter and I are in Crete for a last minute holiday. The temperatures are the same here as they are back home at the moment but the paddling pool in the garden just wasn't doing it for us. Here we have a pool and access to the beach and are totally chilled out reading, drinking coffee, going out on trips, shopping, exploring ancient sites and eating the freshest of foods.

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Self Catering holiday to mainland Greece. The good and the bad.

Bare in mind my starting point for all holidays is Dubai and we live 3km from the Marina and beach. The ideal/perfect holiday destination for a lot of people. Holidaying though in Dubai is very different from living there. A week or two in a foreign country on vacation does not give you a feel for what life is like living there, even if you go to the same place every year. I've applied that logic to our vacation in Greece, but having lived abroad for the past 8 years I do tend to visit new places with the view of 'what would it be like to live there?' We moved to South Africa without visiting first and to Dubai after a weeks holiday.

I had expectations of Greece through other people's instagram and face book updates. When I googled 'Holidays in Greece' up came hundreds of blue and white domed houses as well as images of long white sandy beaches. Maybe it's because we stayed on the mainland and not on one of the islands that it was all very different.

I purposely deselected 'family fun' and 'evening entertainment' yet we still ended up on packed beaches, 10 sun beds deep with music pumping and disturbances well past midnight.

The accommodation was disappointing also. Although it's been a long time since we had a self catering holiday, I had hoped things had improved, but the apartment did not match the online description and whilst it was clean and tidy, it did lack some decoration and equipment to qualify as self catering. There was a two ring hob, kettle and fridge, there was also very basic cutlery and crockery, no peeler, cork screw/bottle opener or sharp knife to prepare even a simple salad. The apartment slept 4 and if I had been travelling with children I would've needed more in the kitchen. The shower, whilst technically fitting the description was actually just a hose and a shower curtain. I ended up sitting in the tray to actually wash as I couldn't hold the shower head, not stick to the curtain and wash my hair at the same time. There were plenty of towels and hand soap in the bathroom but we had to buy toilet paper on day 2.

I had expected more and for what we had paid we could've stayed in a hotel further out and driven to the beach each day. As it was, whilst the beach was only a 9 min walk away and 'mostly flat' it was at the bottom of a very steep slope and as we'd hired a car for the holiday, we drove to another beach in a little village each day.

Whilst the people were very friendly, the area we stayed in was very expensive and rather run down. It took a long time to recover from seeing children as young as 10 being sold alcohol and tobacco, the open trash cans in the streets, which smell, the amount of real fur being sold and the number of stray and injured dogs, as well as being pestered at every restaurant by stray cats.

All in all I won't be visiting Greece again, it didn't live up to my expectations, although we did have a relaxing holiday just chilling out, reading, snorkelling and some of the most fantastic fish we've ever had. Here are some of the more 'instagrammable' photos.