halsa

Does anyone know of any good hotels to stay in Crete. Since Crete is so large I would liek to stay somewhere central. Does anyone know if it better to stay in Heraklion, Chania or Knosses? If so, which city is best and what hotels do you recommend. Any information you could provide would be most appreciated. Thanks!

Marilyn

I would stay in Chania, but cannot recommend any hotels. There are several people seem to like and if you did a search you would turn up some relevant threads. Like this one:
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34518589
or
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34501190

Eleni

I vote for Chania. It is charming and accessible, with an old-world feel. In contrast, Heraklion is full of blocks of cement buildings, and has little to commend itself, except that it is an easier to reach Knossos from Heraklion (and Knosses is not something you should miss -- but be sure to get a guide to fully appreciate what you are seeing). I am unaware of any hotels at "Knosses" -- Heraklion is usually seen as the jumping off point for this site.
Another Cretan city that I prefer to Heraklion is Rethymnon -- there are many artists and writers lving there. Reythymnon is also partway between Chania and Heraklion, so would be considered more "centrally located" that Chania. I have found www.tripadvisor.com to be a reliable source for information about hotels -- the information provided by reviewers is most helpful. For example, http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g1...te-Hotels.html shows the hotels in Chania based on their user rating, plus gives price information. You can use the search function to find hotels in other Cretan communities.

grandmere

I agree with Eleni; both Chania and Rethymnon have much more charm than Heraklion; we did spend one night in Heraklion b/c we were flying out the next day. It wasn't as bad as I had heard, but no real reason to stay there.

Hania

No contest...Chania or Hania. 2nd pick would be Remythenon. Could make suggestion for hotel but what price range are you looking for?

halsa

Price range would be 100 or so dollars per night. Maybe for 3 nights no more than 300 bucks. I looked on matt barretts website and found out that casa delfino hotel in chania is rated very well. Any suggestions would be great. thanks

Hania

I have not stayed at the hotel Delfino but I believe I took a look at it. It was very nice. Great location. I stayed at a less expensive place a street or two behind it, also in the old harbour area of Chania. No view but the rooms were very nice. Most had separate kitchens. Nicely decorated with stone around the door frames. It is called Anastasia Studios at 21 Theotokopouloy. tel. 0821 88001-Fax:46582. It would not be in the same league as Delfino which has a website.

Patrick

Casa Delfino was great, but as I recall well over your budget unless there is a big out of season discount and you're going out of season.

I agree that Chania is best, but Reythmnon would be fine too.

travelgirl_67

Oh I just LOVED Chania/Hania/Xania!!! First stop in planning any Greek holiday is to visit the website: www.greektravel.com! I found this site to be extremely helpful! It is managed by a man that has lived/traveled in Greece for over 20 years and he only recommends the services/places he uses and receives no advertising money for the places listed on his site.

http://www.greecetravel.com/dolphinhellas/index.html - this is the local agency I used to book our hotels, car, and island flights in Crete and Santorini. They were fabulous! Wish I could remember the agent I worked with but that was in my computer that crashed I did a little research on hotels and the islands we wanted to visit and she gave me great feedback and suggestions. We prepaid for the island hotels, island flights, and car and she had the vouchers waiting for us upon our arrival in Athens at the Marriott.

http://www.greecetravel.com/taxi/ - we used this service while in Athens and they were FABULOUS!! They picked us up at the airport and took us to our hotel eventhough our flight was 8 hours late and we arrived at 2 a.m.. Then George (not the owner but another George....I swear all the men in that country are either George, Michael or Stavros!!) picked us up the next morning took us to all the sites and waited for us while we did our thing then took us to the airport to head down to the islands. When we returned to Athens at the end our trip, he once again greeted us and took us around for the evening and then picked us up at 4 a.m. for our flight back home. Highly recommend having a car service while in Athens as driving in the islands was challenging and Athens seemed a million times worse. Plus George was really good about giving us the real scoop!

More on next post...

travelgirl_67

I prefer the European flare of the East side of the island. The West side was nice (easy day trip from East Side) but seemed a little more commercial and crowded and was more Middle East/Turkish influenced. Hania was occupied by the Venetians many centuries ago and still have the Italian feel to it with every Greek influences as well. From our hotel, we were about 2 blocks from the Harbor which was a fabulous place to hang out at night. Pick a table at one the MANY restaurants and just hang out for hours talking with each other and the locals. The people were EXTREMELY friendly. The hotel where we stayed was Porto de Colombo (http://www.crete-hotels-rooms.com/Re...el_Colombo.htm). The hotel was great?they even got up very early the morning of our departure to prepare our breakfast before their regular breakfast hours. We had a car on Crete but not Santorini.

In Santorini, we stayed in Oia (upper part of island) at the Hotel Atlantis Villas (http://santorini.atlantis-villas.tob...Villas/Photos? arrivaldate=7/26/2004&citypname=Santorini&depdate=7/28/2004). The upper part of the island is less touristy that the lower part. Fira in the lower part of the island is where almost all of the cruise ships come in so its more crowed and prices are little higher down there. From Oia (or Ia), you can take a little "bus" down there and it take about 30 minutes if I remember correctly. When the hotel's shuttle arrived at the hotel, we were greeted by a donkey and bellman. The bellman loaded our luggage on the donkey and we proceeded up a little hill and back down the other side of the hill with donkey in tow. All the villas/hotels look identical (white washed) so you really have to pay attention (esp. helpful after several shots of ouzo or raki!!!). We arrived at our villa and the desk clerk was so very friendly! We were taken to our room and fell in love right away!! All the villas are built into the side of the cliff so you have a little bit of that cave feel -- the villas are extremely cool because of the stone and tile floors. The villas have a little kitchenette and we had a bottle of wine waiting for us upon arrival. We had a little patio with a table and umbrella...we overlooked the sea and volcano!! It was unbelievable!!! While a car is good to have in Crete, you do not need one in Santorini (not to mention there's really no place to park it). We spent 4 days on Santorini?plenty for 2 girls?would definitely go back for a romantic trip with a special fella.

I absolultely loved Greece and look forward to returning! Have a wonderful trip and please do post a trip report upon your return.

sheila

travelgirl, do you have your easts and wests mixed up?

My one reservation from whatever else you said, is that I don't think you can visit Chania from a base on the east coast or vice versa in a day.

travelgirl_67

You are correct, I did get my east and west confused. We did stay in Hania and had no trouble visiting the "Eastern" side of the island on a day trip.

propertravel

I would also vote for Ag. Nicolaos and Elounda part of the island ( east )

halsa

Hi Travelgirl_67
thanks for the help about the hotels.
I too will be traveling to Athens, Santorini and Crete. Since Crete is large I was thinking Chania, I wil l have to see what hotels are recommeded.
Also, as for Santorini, there are so many choices in hotels, but the city of choice i think will be Fira or Oia? Not sure which one, any recommendations? Also, as for your trip, did you take ferries or fly? I would prefer ferries...any recommendations would be fabulous. Thanks.

travelgirl_67

Halsa,
For Santorini, I preferred Oia over Fira. Oia is on the upper part of the island and was less crowded than Fira. Just about all of the cruise ships come in to Fira and the town seemed much more on the touristy side for me. I found the shop owners in Oia to be much friendlier and not as pushy (pushy but not as pushy). My friend and I were even taken out one night by the shop owners of a jewelry store and treated to a traditional Greek evening! It was fabulous!

As to the ferries vs. flying...we actually flew from Crete back to Athens to Santorini (no direct flight when we were there - may have changed since). We had maybe an hour layover in Athens. We decided to fly as we wanted more time on land vs. sea. If I'm not mistaken, there were no ferries leaving from Chania and we would have had to get to the capital (name escapes me now) to catch a ferry and it just wasn't worth it to us. If you opt to fly, you can wait until you get to Crete before purchasing the tickets...we bought ours the day before we left Chania.

The hotel I recommended for Oia was really very nice...it was actually a villa built into the side of the cliff so you had the traditional cave feel while having the modern luxuries!

Let me know if I can help in any other way. Have a great trip!

halsa

Travelgirl_67,
thanks for the tips. I'll keep you posted on the trip. Thanks again for the advice and help!

hhuisman2

I would defenitely go for Agia Pelagia, some 20 kilometers away from Heraklion: quiet, central and with 5 nice beaches within the village. Check it out on my page about Crete at http://www.angelfire.com/me4/greekislands
Have fun!
Hans Griekenland 2link.be http://griekenland.2link.be

Patrick

It was nice of you to register here to search and answer this 6 month old question that I would assume has long been settled.

PaulX

I will be in Crete this September, i was thinking of staying in chania. Crete is the last stop in my 4 month holiday so i havent done a lot of research on it as yet. Is it easy to get to Chania from Herklion? Most of the ferries seem to go to and from Heraklion. Also i need to get back to Athens from Crete, whats the best (and cheapest) airline that would do this? Would it cost much more than getting the ferry? It would no doubt save about 7 hours by flying it