Май - не время для Греции May is not the time for Greece

Vacation this year fell on May . . We thought for a long time where to go at this time... We wanted to go to Cyprus, but it fell through... (Belarus is going through hard times, you can’t even fly to Cyprus). The tour company advised Greece. To be honest, there was no choice, they took the first one that came across... Very mixed impressions. Firstly, Nea-Kallikratia, where the hotel is located, is an ordinary small village, not a resort town, but a village: a school, a kindergarten, local residents taking out the garbage, a minimum of infrastructure, and other amenities of the village. In general, the town itself disappointed us specifically. Moreover, in mid-May, the season is just beginning there, there were no sunbeds and umbrellas on the beach, many shops and taverns were not yet working... Everywhere is dirty, unkempt, abandoned... In comparison with our "underdeveloped" Belarus, in this regard , Greek villages - a complete backwater!! ! There was nowhere to go in the evening at all, they toiled like restless people, at 10 pm everything was already closed, it was dark in all windows, it's time to sleep!!!
Secondly, the weather also let us down... For all the time there were only two warm days when it was possible to sunbathe, and we spent one of them on excursions in Athens, and on the second we already burned out to the fullest. But there is nothing to do, we walked around this village in warm apartments, such a beach holiday.
Now about the hotel. . . If the hotel was also miserable, then such a holiday could be anathematized!! ! And so lucky: the staff is very friendly, Russian-speaking for the most part. At the hotel in the morning and in the evening there are guides from the Muuzenidis Travel company (with which we flew): without them, one could have completely disappeared. We also rented a car (the cheapest Chevrolet Matiz with a manual transmission costs 45 euros for a day and 80 for two), and went on excursions. We drove by car to Thessaloniki, it's forty kilometers. But you have to be prepared for unrealistic traffic in the city. Maybe for Muscovites it will seem ridiculous, but for us, Belarusians, accustomed to good streets and normal traffic, it was very difficult: all the streets are narrow, filled with cars from all sides, you can barely squeeze through, there is nowhere to park your car, you can hardly find parking, half of the roads are one-way, our navigator went crazy with our ride : )

It is very far to go to Athens, all night by bus. . . And it costs 90 euros per person. But you need to go, because this is the cradle of culture! We visited the ancient city of Dion (ruins in the open, but from the whole city - streets, baths, houses, even public toilets! ), in the tombs of Philip 2 in Vergina, at the Thermopylae crossing. But the most relaxing and really giving an idea of ​ ​ ​ ​ the rest was a trip to the waterfalls of Edessa (though they only give about forty minutes to walk through the most beautiful places) and to the thermal springs of Aridea. It was great, considering that we didn't manage to swim in the sea because of the cold weather - hot springs were a great solution to the problem. This, by the way, is very close to Nea Kalikratia, if we had known this before, we would have gone by car there.
Let's go back to the hotel. We liked the food. We took breakfast and dinner. Always a buffet. For breakfast there were dry cereals, eggs of various preparations, dried fruits and nuts, fat-free yogurt, vegetables, tea-coffee and Yupi. For dinner, various meat dishes (chicken, squid, lamb), pasta, potatoes, various vegetables, olives, gherkins, pickled peppers, balazhans... And much more... Drinks for dinner are paid (we were ready for this, so almost everywhere in Europe). The biggest drawback of the "restaurant" is that it is located right in the lobby of the hotel. Yes, yes, you come in with suitcases, go to the reception, and people are sitting nearby eating... Unusual.
The hotel rooms are ordinary, without frills, the standard is called. Everyone has a view of the pine forest. With hot water, however, the trouble was very rare. But in the SPA, in the basement of the hotel, there is always. Hence the conclusion - everything pours out below, there is no more left upstairs. Here in the SPA you can spend gloomy days. There is a hammam, and a sauna, and a mini-pool, and exercise equipment.
Summing up all of the above, I can say that the hotel is quite decent, considering that there are probably two hotels in Nea Kalikratia : )), thanks to the staff for a good rest, because the heavenly office let us down. And for the future, we already know that May is not the best time for Greek resorts, at least in Halkidiki.