HelenG

Hello fellow Fodorites!!
We are planning a trip to Rethymno this coming June and have some questions that I can't seem to find the answers to after reading different posts. We'll be arriving from Athens and I am thinking that flying into Chania or Iraklion is the best and fastest way. Any opinion as to which airport would be better/closer? Is the transportation from airport to hotel necessary to be arranged beforehand?

Also, I have information from the greek travel pages (from 2006) that states that there is a ferry from Rethymno to Santorini (departs on a Tuesday at 7:45AM). I have searched and re-searched current schedules but have not come up with anything simillar. Am I too early in looking for this information? Last time we visited Chania, we had to go to Iraklion for the fast ferry to Santorini.

Tentative hotels that can accommodate us are: Petradi Beach Apts, Palazzino Di Corina and Villa Kynthia. Anyone have experience with any of them? Any other suggestions? Would love to be on the beach but also close to the center of town. There will be 3 couples travelling and the consensus is that we do not want a big hotel

Thank you for any help you can all provide.

dunia123

I just returned from a trip to Greece, including Chania, Crete. Rethymno is just about half way in between Chania & Heraklion, so either could work. (My preference would be Chania, though that's mostly because we found the city so lovely.) We rented a car from Autoway, which delivered the car right to the airport. I don't recall if there were cabs or other airport transfer options, but I would investigate and arrange before hand. We flew into Chania and went to Santorini via ferry from Herakion. There wasn't anything available from Rethymno that I found, but it is likely that you're too early. (Our ferry schedule changed in the week or so before we arrived, though we didn't discover that until we were in Crete. In hindsight, I would probably have waited longer to book my ferry tickets til I arrived in Crete.) Hope that helps!

jrjcolllins

At Rethymno, don't miss the archeological museum, which is a gem of Minoan finds. They had quite a few burial vessels with beautiful elaborate drawings on the outside, from at least 1200BC. We loved Rethymno and climbing around the Venetian fortress was a lot of fun.

travelerjan

Most of the hotels on the Rethymno beach are big hotels, from my research.

HelenG

Thank you all for this information. I contacted some smaller hotels via fax and am waiting their response. Also, does anyone know when the ferry schedules for 2010 might be published? I also remember that Aegean Airlines put some of their routes on sale (Athens/Chania) - I hope that they will do again and I'll be watching this board in case any of you hear anything about it, as well as checking with the airline.

Any other suggestions regarding what not to miss in Rethymno? any "local" restaurants? Thank you again for any help and advice.