На острове Крит On the island of Crete

In early June of this year, we went with a friend and her ten-year-old son to Crete to the Golden Star 4 * hotel (Heraklion). I love Greece, especially the islands - last year there was Rhodes, this year according to the plan, Crete. As we were traveling with a child, we had to amend our usual resort hotel requirements. The determining factor was that Natalie Tours at Golden Star has a children's program (we took the Adults and Children tour) and that a child under 11 years old stays free of charge in this hotel if he is accommodated in a room with two adults. True, after reading the reviews about this hotel before departure, we are a little wilted. There were some very negative ones among them - they allegedly feed badly, and scorpions dart around in a shabby room. Thank God, it all turned out to be nonsense, and the authors of such reviews, most likely, were not in this hotel. The only true thing is that there is only one Russian channel, at least in our room, but I don’t watch TV at home, I save my brain. We got a cozy room, it fit perfectly in size, we didn’t push our knees, plus a chic balcony, if we wanted peace, we went there to read or sit with a glass of local wine. The staff is quite sane, they didn’t leave a tip every day, but on the second day they made a present to the maid - a big Babaev chocolate bar, after which the cleaning was excellent. And in general the staff, as elsewhere in Greece, is very friendly. We also liked the food - what could not like there? Fresh vegetables, salads, meat, fish, barbecue events. At first, the boy did not really perceive the abundance of olive oil and kept asking if his mother had taken mayonnaise, but then he got involved and, running around in the club with the kids, cracked everything that you put on a plate. I will tell about the club separately. Looking at our guy, I even regretted that I sent my blockheads to a sports camp near Gelendzhik. The animators simply enslaved the children's people, from breakfast until the evening there was a variety of fun activities, contests, competitions and more. Kirill, having come to the room after dinner, used to fall asleep without having time to take off his shoes, and at breakfast there was only talk about “what happened yesterday” and what the counselors would come up with for them today. When they flew back, he was sitting straight all in sadness, so he did not want to go to boring Moscow. We also rented a car and drove around the island for a bit. Of what I saw, the Lassithi Plateau and the Diktea Cave, the cradle of Zeus, were most memorable. And just rolling in a car with a breeze along excellent roads between mountains and pines is just a thrill. Moreover, you can sometimes stop and swim in some beautiful secluded bay with crystal clear water. In general, we returned to Moscow with a large suitcase of sunny impressions and, I think, we will come to Greece more than once to rest.