Trip to Crete (Greece) in August 2019

The island Crete is usually associated with the warm sea and the sun.

The region Chania represents the greenest part of the island.

We stayed in the hotel Yakinthos. This three-star hotel is located in an excellent place, 30 minutes from the center of the city Chania. There is a nice swimming pool in the hotel. The water is warm and deep enough for a good plunge.



You can see in the picture that there are no people lounging on the sunbeds. Most of the time the swimming pool was empty.

All of the days during our stay at the hotel, we were laying under a shady tree or walking to the sea. It takes only two minutes to walk through a green small road to reach the shore of the sea. The sea was great, clean, warm, and relatively empty. This picture was taken in the morning.



We visited Chania, a beautiful city built in Venetian style, where the harbor and old city are the main tourist attractions.



This region is located in a relatively remote place, three hours by car from the main airport on the island, in Heraklion. Due to the long-distance, we only bought two tickets for the excursion.

The first excursion was to the uninhabited island, Gramvousa, and Bay Balos. There is the old ruined fortress on the hill of the island. Tourists go up to the peak to see the beautiful views from the hill.



The Bay Balos is a very popular place for tourism. It's interesting to see the emerald, crystal-clear water, but swimming there is not convenient because the place is quite crowded.



On the way back there was an incident on the ship. One passenger of our ship had a health issue which was believed to be a heart attack. The ship had to return to the port and it left all passengers in this isolated place. All of us from the ship had to wait for two hours sitting on the stones. Some were in the open sun trying to prevent themselves from getting burnt.



Our next excursion had the title "Unknown Crete". On the way to the final destination, we visited another beautiful city- Rethymno.



We visited a medieval monastery Preveli.



During the last part of this excursion, we visited the south part of the island. This place is quite exotic, it is surrounded by mountains and the sea. The Greek government tries to keep this territory untouched. Only a very few hotels are built there. That is why the excursion bears the name, "Unknown Crete.”



In summary, we can conclude that Crete is an ideal place for a calm, relaxing holiday.