Crete.
September 2007 Hotel - Hersonissos Maris. 4*.
The author is Pasha from Odessa.
I am writing reviews about different countries and hotels and suddenly I asked myself why I didn’t write about Crete, where I was in September 2007? Because everything was good! And there is no question of any vile machinations of greedy tour operators and steps of guides dumbfounded by the heat! So what am I, not writing about beautiful and high. Gotta fix it. Only a year has passed, some names, appearances and passwords have been erased from memory.
I ordered a tour through my trusted agent, and he went to Mibs, cat. and raises charters to Crete. What is nice, the Greek Schengen visa is obtained in Odessa, at the Greek consulate, where my wife and I went together.
The charter schedule seemed inconvenient (it is inconvenient): departure there at 8 pm, and arrival back at 3 am.
But, as it turned out, there is an advantage in this: the last day before the flight back is a full day of rest, you can go on an excursion, which we did. With a week's rest, an extra day is felt.
So, we arrived at Heraklion airport, transfer - by taxi-Mercedes! There was another couple with us. No tourists are transported on buses, but in certain situations they do not disdain Mercedes. By the way, the best cars in Crete are taxis. We arrived half an hour later at our hotel, I ask at the reception, as always, for a sea view, and, lo and behold, I get it right away, probably for the first time in my travel career. That's Europe! I will say right away that the hotel has a direct view of the sea, only a couple of rooms, the rest are side ones. We went into the room, and my wife, accustomed to luxury by me, did not like the room. Spartan environment. As correctly noted, the girls who have already written about this hotel, especially there is nowhere to hang things.
But everything is there, all the modern achievements of civilization. In addition to the air conditioner, there are also plastic curtains that allow you to make pitch darkness during the day - to help businessmen suffering from lack of sleep. Late, we went to bed. In the morning we had a chance to explore the hotel. It looks like a Greek village, consists of cottages. There are nice patios. Near the first floors there are swimming pools (for one room and for several). These pools did not impress me, they came to the sea, and not in order not to climb out of the room. A certain minus - it is designed in such a way that in many rooms on the balcony or in your front garden you will not be able to retire. There are no partitions on the balconies from neighboring rooms, and the front gardens are located next to the path, along the cat. everyone is walking. But people swim in their pools, not embarrassed, but how - paid, you have to use it. Around - Mediterranean greenery, and under our window a pomegranate just grew (next to a grove).
You can take a lot of great pictures. The food is excellent, drinks for dinner are paid (a common thing for half board). The hotel is separated from the sea by a narrow road. There is no need to be afraid of her, she does not bother at all. The guide made an appointment for us in the afternoon, so it was time to get comfortable, and we went to the sea. The brightest impression, a cat. washes away the remnants of fatigue from the flight - the purest water. I have never seen such water anywhere. Maybe it's all about small pebbles? The purity of the water is visible even in the photographs, you can see the stones, but the water itself is not visible. Who loves such things, the road to Crete. As I understand it, it is clean everywhere.
On the beach (it is quite small, but there are not many people), there are paid sun loungers and an umbrella. The fee is 2.5 euros per piece. In other places of Crete, I met prices - 2 euros. In 5-star hotels, beach services are free.
As the girls correctly wrote, because of the narrow road, not all large buses drive up to the hotel, and on excursions you need to walk 10 minutes on foot to the Creta Maris hotel. Although I saw that some buses, but of other companies, drove up to the hotel, but I saw once the bus got stuck and could not get out for about 20 minutes. But I saw the bus as a cat. picked me up, then, collecting tourists, drove into even narrower places.
But walking briskly for 10 minutes in the morning is not a problem. We were selected, as a rule, approx. 8 ocloc'k.
And for Creta Maris another 7 minutes walk - and you get to the shopping street of the city of Hersonissos. No one grabs by the hand, no one shouts "brother buy. " Civilization. By the way, what to buy in Greece? What is there in Greece? Greece has everything. But first of all, coats. It turns out (I did not know) that for 300 years in some city in the north of Greece, the entire adult population has been sewing fur coats and they are doing quite well. They sell fur coats all over Greece. You can actually buy from 1500 Euros. But the choice is huge.
You just need to be ready for it. A notable feature of any fur shop is a Russian-speaking saleswoman (immigrants from Georgia, Abkhazia, etc. ), a table with a huge bottle of Metaxa, and there are also fur coats. The main idea is this - a Russian couple comes in, he immediately sits down to drink Metaxa while she tries on a fur coat. Women measure for a long time, so when it comes to the price, it doesn’t matter anymore.
They remember the sweet times in these stores, when a cruise ship from Odessa came, and people had to buy 500 fur coats in 3 hours. I promised that cruises would soon be revived.
I will also tell you about Creta Maris, I looked there, it seems to be a cool hotel. But it is expensive, as my agent told me, 5 star hotels in Greece are 2 times more expensive than 4 star hotels.
There is also a diving center in Creta Maris, where I successfully dived. The instructors, as I understand it, are purebred young Englishmen and Englishwomen, possibly students.
Despite his youth, everything is strict, briefing, questionnaire, equipment check. My NAUI certificate, cat. I was given in Sevastopol by a famous diver and my friend Alexei Mardasov, and with whom I dived up to 30 meters, in Crete he allowed me to go down only 12. Lesha said that they were wrong. I dived with a group of foreigners, under the water the language is common international diving, and when they got out, it turned out that almost everyone speaks Russian, and without an accent. It was nice.
So, a guide arrived, ours, I don’t remember the name, but sleepy, like all of ours who work there. We decided that we would go to see the Palace of the Minotaur, on the island of Spinalonga (on Friday on the last day - a late flight came in handy). By the way, although the room had to be handed over, but the hotel has a shower, when we arrived from the tour, we used it.
Knossos Palace, the Minotaur, what to say, you need to go and see. The historical place for which they came. You can also buy souvenirs there.
Also visited is Heraklion, a typical Mediterranean city. For those who have never seen it, it will be very interesting.
Spinalonga is a very interesting excursion where, in addition to the island with the fortress, you also see Elounda Bay, where Beckham and Vika lit, and our Pugacheva, as well as the lovely town of Agios Nikolos. In addition, a picnic on the island (neighboring). I can only say that the boat is very large, our tourists are at least 100 people, which is why there is a queue for a piece of meat. It is possible, probably, to go by yourself and agree with some boatman, Schaub brought me up.
You say, but what about the cave of Zeus? I rented a Fiat Panda almost racing car for 3 days. It cost 90 Euro + petrol for 3 days. Rental right next to the hotel. Air-conditioned car!! ! On it, we first of all went to the Lasithi plateau and climbed, and then descended into the cave where Zeus was born! I will say that the ascent to the mountain is half an hour from the parking lot along a difficult road.
It will be very difficult with a child or the elderly! There are, however, donkeys, but for the rental, prepare 15 Euros. The road to Lasithi is very beautiful, on the way back we stopped for lunch, overlooking the gorge, some kind of flock of pigeons flew, and by the end of lunch it dawned on me, these are eagles! There are countless of them. It’s good that we went to the cave ourselves, because when we arrived there at 11 o’clock, there was no one in the parking lot, and when we went down an hour later, it was impossible to leave, the buses came in large numbers. On the same day, we went to the village of Petra, where the best wines in Crete are produced. There's a tasting room there, cat. works up to 4 hours. Free tasting! Then you buy the wines you like in the shop.
The next day on the machine, I said that I wanted to go to the South Coast, the South coast of Crete. In Crete, for some reason, everything is located on the north coast, and the south is terra incognita.
By the way, you can’t drive all of Crete (500 km) in a day, the roads are mostly narrow, overtaking is prohibited, and you can’t overtake Europe. In principle, everyone follows the rules, although, as I understand it, the speed limit is still violated. There were strong waves on the South Coast, we hit a huge beach, small pebbles, where there were very few people. We visited monasteries and churches. In Crete they are all very small. I want to say that we went to the South Coast through Rethymno and Spili, there were many places to eat along the way (in Spili, for example), and back through Agia Varvara, so we didn’t see something, but where you can eat. We returned and had dinner.
On the 3rd day was Drang nah osten in search of a grove of paradise. We did not get to it, but we found a wonderful lagoon in the village of Istro in Mirabello Gulf. A wonderful place, the purest water, the purest small pebbles, on which you walk like sand. In the same place, at the exit to the lagoon, there is a cafe where we had lunch. The bill in Crete is about 15 Euro per person, i. e. cheaper than ours.
A few more observations. If you want juice, then there is, as a rule, only fresh orange juice. Apple I found only in this cafe. If oranges grow right in the yard, then why something else? There is a Greek salad, only cheese is there in one piece.
Cypriots are very friendly. It was a discovery for me that Greek sounds are completely identical to Russian ones. That is, the Greeks speak, as it were, Russian, but carry abracadabra. Parakalo, efharisto (please, thank you). As you read, this is how it sounds in Greek. In the course of English.
At the hotel, the girl at the reception was so cheerful that I wanted to hug and kiss her. There are really a lot of pensioners in the hotel, and from France, but does this bother anyone? Only ours can spoil the rest.
Above the Gulf of Hersonissos, they make a U-turn and all the planes go to land, a cat. fly to Heraklion. You will fly like this too.
But at night, the traffic decreases, and in principle it does not bother, although, I admit that some sensitive natures may suffer slightly.
My friend, who was in Hersonissos Maris 5 years before me, warned that the Greeks, especially the Cypriots, should be treated with understanding, that they are completely happy people, well, pomegranates grow in the yard, and therefore do not be offended if some kind of plumbing will not work. But everything worked! On the last day, I decided to take a bath, then I get up and see that my floor is already 5 centimeters deep in water. So that's what she's talking about! So crashes can happen.
Everyone is also offered a trip to Santorini, a wonderful island, but we did not go, because it takes a long time to go there, and we have few days. In addition, as my friend said, you have to watch the sunset there, that is, go for 2 days, which is very expensive. I think if you came to Crete for 2 weeks, and you have money, then it's worth a trip.
In short, I recommend Crete to everyone, a great vacation, hassle-free, and you want to dig into something, and not into anything.
When we arrived in Boryspil, we received our luggage, and we saw that a bottle of wine had broken in my wife's suitcase! Red! So they throw things in our Boryspil (the wine was just flowing out). I raised a high (Hipish in Odessa), complained to the Ministry of Transport, remembered all the sins of Aerosvit, but they sent me a letter indicating that, according to such and such a convention, they are not responsible for the beating! Well, there was not much damage to things, but it's a pity for the bottle! But that's another story...
If you have any questions, please write to me at odessos@ukr. net
Pasha from Odessa.
September 2007 Hotel - Hersonissos Maris. 4*.
The author is Pasha from Odessa.
I am writing reviews about different countries and hotels and suddenly I asked myself why I didn’t write about Crete, where I was in September 2007? Because everything was good! And there is no question of any vile machinations of greedy tour operators and steps of guides dumbfounded by the heat! So what am I, not writing about beautiful and high. Gotta fix it. Only a year has passed, some names, appearances and passwords have been erased from memory.
I ordered a tour through my trusted agent, and he went to Mibs, cat. and raises charters to Crete. What is nice, the Greek Schengen visa is obtained in Odessa, at the Greek consulate, where my wife and I went together.
The charter schedule seemed inconvenient (it is inconvenient): departure there at 8 pm, and arrival back at 3 am.
But, as it turned out, there is an advantage in this: the last day before the flight back is a full day of rest, you can go on an excursion, which we did. With a week's rest, an extra day is felt.
So, we arrived at Heraklion airport, transfer - by taxi-Mercedes! There was another couple with us. No tourists are transported on buses, but in certain situations they do not disdain Mercedes. By the way, the best cars in Crete are taxis. We arrived half an hour later at our hotel, I ask at the reception, as always, for a sea view, and, lo and behold, I get it right away, probably for the first time in my travel career. That's Europe! I will say right away that the hotel has a direct view of the sea, only a couple of rooms, the rest are side ones. We went into the room, and my wife, accustomed to luxury by me, did not like the room. Spartan environment. As correctly noted, the girls who have already written about this hotel, especially there is nowhere to hang things.
But everything is there, all the modern achievements of civilization. In addition to the air conditioner, there are also plastic curtains that allow you to make pitch darkness during the day - to help businessmen suffering from lack of sleep. Late, we went to bed. In the morning we had a chance to explore the hotel. It looks like a Greek village, consists of cottages. There are nice patios. Near the first floors there are swimming pools (for one room and for several). These pools did not impress me, they came to the sea, and not in order not to climb out of the room. A certain minus - it is designed in such a way that in many rooms on the balcony or in your front garden you will not be able to retire. There are no partitions on the balconies from neighboring rooms, and the front gardens are located next to the path, along the cat. everyone is walking. But people swim in their pools, not embarrassed, but how - paid, you have to use it. Around - Mediterranean greenery, and under our window a pomegranate just grew (next to a grove).
You can take a lot of great pictures. The food is excellent, drinks for dinner are paid (a common thing for half board). The hotel is separated from the sea by a narrow road. There is no need to be afraid of her, she does not bother at all. The guide made an appointment for us in the afternoon, so it was time to get comfortable, and we went to the sea. The brightest impression, a cat. washes away the remnants of fatigue from the flight - the purest water. I have never seen such water anywhere. Maybe it's all about small pebbles? The purity of the water is visible even in the photographs, you can see the stones, but the water itself is not visible. Who loves such things, the road to Crete. As I understand it, it is clean everywhere.
On the beach (it is quite small, but there are not many people), there are paid sun loungers and an umbrella. The fee is 2.5 euros per piece. In other places of Crete, I met prices - 2 euros. In 5-star hotels, beach services are free.
As the girls correctly wrote, because of the narrow road, not all large buses drive up to the hotel, and on excursions you need to walk 10 minutes on foot to the Creta Maris hotel. Although I saw that some buses, but of other companies, drove up to the hotel, but I saw once the bus got stuck and could not get out for about 20 minutes. But I saw the bus as a cat. picked me up, then, collecting tourists, drove into even narrower places.
But walking briskly for 10 minutes in the morning is not a problem. We were selected, as a rule, approx. 8 ocloc'k.
And for Creta Maris another 7 minutes walk - and you get to the shopping street of the city of Hersonissos. No one grabs by the hand, no one shouts "brother buy. " Civilization. By the way, what to buy in Greece? What is there in Greece? Greece has everything. But first of all, coats. It turns out (I did not know) that for 300 years in some city in the north of Greece, the entire adult population has been sewing fur coats and they are doing quite well. They sell fur coats all over Greece. You can actually buy from 1500 Euros. But the choice is huge.
You just need to be ready for it. A notable feature of any fur shop is a Russian-speaking saleswoman (immigrants from Georgia, Abkhazia, etc. ), a table with a huge bottle of Metaxa, and there are also fur coats. The main idea is this - a Russian couple comes in, he immediately sits down to drink Metaxa while she tries on a fur coat. Women measure for a long time, so when it comes to the price, it doesn’t matter anymore.
They remember the sweet times in these stores, when a cruise ship from Odessa came, and people had to buy 500 fur coats in 3 hours. I promised that cruises would soon be revived.
I will also tell you about Creta Maris, I looked there, it seems to be a cool hotel. But it is expensive, as my agent told me, 5 star hotels in Greece are 2 times more expensive than 4 star hotels.
There is also a diving center in Creta Maris, where I successfully dived. The instructors, as I understand it, are purebred young Englishmen and Englishwomen, possibly students.
Despite his youth, everything is strict, briefing, questionnaire, equipment check. My NAUI certificate, cat. I was given in Sevastopol by a famous diver and my friend Alexei Mardasov, and with whom I dived up to 30 meters, in Crete he allowed me to go down only 12. Lesha said that they were wrong. I dived with a group of foreigners, under the water the language is common international diving, and when they got out, it turned out that almost everyone speaks Russian, and without an accent. It was nice.
So, a guide arrived, ours, I don’t remember the name, but sleepy, like all of ours who work there. We decided that we would go to see the Palace of the Minotaur, on the island of Spinalonga (on Friday on the last day - a late flight came in handy). By the way, although the room had to be handed over, but the hotel has a shower, when we arrived from the tour, we used it.
Knossos Palace, the Minotaur, what to say, you need to go and see. The historical place for which they came. You can also buy souvenirs there.
Also visited is Heraklion, a typical Mediterranean city. For those who have never seen it, it will be very interesting.
Spinalonga is a very interesting excursion where, in addition to the island with the fortress, you also see Elounda Bay, where Beckham and Vika lit, and our Pugacheva, as well as the lovely town of Agios Nikolos. In addition, a picnic on the island (neighboring). I can only say that the boat is very large, our tourists are at least 100 people, which is why there is a queue for a piece of meat. It is possible, probably, to go by yourself and agree with some boatman, Schaub brought me up.
You say, but what about the cave of Zeus? I rented a Fiat Panda almost racing car for 3 days. It cost 90 Euro + petrol for 3 days. Rental right next to the hotel. Air-conditioned car!! ! On it, we first of all went to the Lasithi plateau and climbed, and then descended into the cave where Zeus was born! I will say that the ascent to the mountain is half an hour from the parking lot along a difficult road.
It will be very difficult with a child or the elderly! There are, however, donkeys, but for the rental, prepare 15 Euros. The road to Lasithi is very beautiful, on the way back we stopped for lunch, overlooking the gorge, some kind of flock of pigeons flew, and by the end of lunch it dawned on me, these are eagles! There are countless of them. It’s good that we went to the cave ourselves, because when we arrived there at 11 o’clock, there was no one in the parking lot, and when we went down an hour later, it was impossible to leave, the buses came in large numbers. On the same day, we went to the village of Petra, where the best wines in Crete are produced. There's a tasting room there, cat. works up to 4 hours. Free tasting! Then you buy the wines you like in the shop.
The next day on the machine, I said that I wanted to go to the South Coast, the South coast of Crete. In Crete, for some reason, everything is located on the north coast, and the south is terra incognita.
By the way, you can’t drive all of Crete (500 km) in a day, the roads are mostly narrow, overtaking is prohibited, and you can’t overtake Europe. In principle, everyone follows the rules, although, as I understand it, the speed limit is still violated. There were strong waves on the South Coast, we hit a huge beach, small pebbles, where there were very few people. We visited monasteries and churches. In Crete they are all very small. I want to say that we went to the South Coast through Rethymno and Spili, there were many places to eat along the way (in Spili, for example), and back through Agia Varvara, so we didn’t see something, but where you can eat. We returned and had dinner.
On the 3rd day was Drang nah osten in search of a grove of paradise. We did not get to it, but we found a wonderful lagoon in the village of Istro in Mirabello Gulf. A wonderful place, the purest water, the purest small pebbles, on which you walk like sand. In the same place, at the exit to the lagoon, there is a cafe where we had lunch. The bill in Crete is about 15 Euro per person, i. e. cheaper than ours.
A few more observations. If you want juice, then there is, as a rule, only fresh orange juice. Apple I found only in this cafe. If oranges grow right in the yard, then why something else? There is a Greek salad, only cheese is there in one piece.
Cypriots are very friendly. It was a discovery for me that Greek sounds are completely identical to Russian ones. That is, the Greeks speak, as it were, Russian, but carry abracadabra. Parakalo, efharisto (please, thank you). As you read, this is how it sounds in Greek. In the course of English.
At the hotel, the girl at the reception was so cheerful that I wanted to hug and kiss her. There are really a lot of pensioners in the hotel, and from France, but does this bother anyone? Only ours can spoil the rest.
Above the Gulf of Hersonissos, they make a U-turn and all the planes go to land, a cat. fly to Heraklion. You will fly like this too.
But at night, the traffic decreases, and in principle it does not bother, although, I admit that some sensitive natures may suffer slightly.
My friend, who was in Hersonissos Maris 5 years before me, warned that the Greeks, especially the Cypriots, should be treated with understanding, that they are completely happy people, well, pomegranates grow in the yard, and therefore do not be offended if some kind of plumbing will not work. But everything worked! On the last day, I decided to take a bath, then I get up and see that my floor is already 5 centimeters deep in water. So that's what she's talking about! So crashes can happen.
Everyone is also offered a trip to Santorini, a wonderful island, but we did not go, because it takes a long time to go there, and we have few days. In addition, as my friend said, you have to watch the sunset there, that is, go for 2 days, which is very expensive. I think if you came to Crete for 2 weeks, and you have money, then it's worth a trip.
In short, I recommend Crete to everyone, a great vacation, hassle-free, and you want to dig into something, and not into anything.
When we arrived in Boryspil, we received our luggage, and we saw that a bottle of wine had broken in my wife's suitcase! Red! So they throw things in our Boryspil (the wine was just flowing out). I raised a high (Hipish in Odessa), complained to the Ministry of Transport, remembered all the sins of Aerosvit, but they sent me a letter indicating that, according to such and such a convention, they are not responsible for the beating! Well, there was not much damage to things, but it's a pity for the bottle! But that's another story...
If you have any questions, please write to me at odessos@ukr. net
Pasha from Odessa.
Translated automatically from Russian. View original
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