A week at the Aris Palace in Crete

Just as London was getting a bit autumnal I jetted out to Crete with friends for an extended bit of sunshine. By and large that is what we got, although a bit more windy than we expected early on. Anyway, we stayed at the Aris Palace for a week, a family of four with grown up kids plus me as adopted seedy uncle.

Aris Palace is a little pretentious a title for an Airbnb house. "Villa" would be a better description. But don't let me belittle the place. For the money paid this was stupendous value. A lovely modern villa in a secluded spot about 10 minutes from Heraklion airport with views over olive groves. Four bedrooms and four bathrooms. Spacious, with a very nice pool out front. Great for a family but also great for a small party of young couples as all rooms had at least twin beds. And our host Thanos truly couldn't do enough for us. This was his business sure enough, but he runs it with genuine enthusiasm. There is much written about the problems with Airbnb and how it is unfair on hotels. But another way of looking at this experience is just to say this was vastly better than a hotel and Thanos provided vastly better service than you would get at almost any hotel. If this was more expensive than a hotel I would still choose this. By a mile. Airbnbs don't just win by being cheaper. They also are just preferable. Hotels want to see them closed down on the grounds they are unfair competition; the truth is they are better and it is the fair competition that they cannot match.

Anyway, let's do a little tour, starting at the front. Here it is with pool. Not heated, so expect it to be a little chilly. Or cooling depending on your take on such matters.

I took the basement bedroom, which in truth is a separate granny flat with en-suite, sink and dining table.

 And from my basement flat there are doors out onto the sun terrace.

So this is where I spent a good deal of the holiday. Alison and Ben went down with horrible colds and Kit's health at the moment means he goes from fit, energetic young man to wiped out and needing a nap, so we didn't get out and about as much as we might have done. But this is not a hardship when you can sit and read with that view on comfortable outside chairs.

Bathrooms were all clean and spacious. The one catch were the showers. Having no shower curtains was a fine idea, but having no place to fix the hand held shower above one's head was, as was the shower head splaying in all directions. So inevitably one flooded the bathroom, and I cannot easily cope with holding a shower in one had and trying to get shower gel out of a bottle with the other!

The ground floor has a very spacious kitchen/dining room/lounge, with eclectic but very serviceable furniture. Just a very nice place to be.

 And from the main living room you can proceed out the glass doors onto a further balcony overlooking the pool.

 Apparently what you need to set off such a pool is an inflatable pink flamingo.

 

Kit seemed to like his pink flamingo. So macho

The nearest beach is about a ten minute drive. Carteros beach is attractive enough, frequented by Greek tourists rather than international ones. And the water was lovely. It is basically sandy with drifts of pebbles. Spent a very pleasant afternoon with Kit just bobbing up and down in the waves. There is a wide flat shelf, so you can happily just stand on the sandy bottom and let oneself bob up and down.

Part of the beach was turned over to parasols and sun loungers, so there were changing facilities and toilets too, as well as areas of empty sand.

 

 The Aris Palace also offered nice evening views over the olive groves.

And the option for a barbecue around the back. But beware mosquitoes. Or just take me with you to attract them. My ankles suffered.

And if you wanted a late night dip, well that was an option too. Which Kit seemed particularly keen on. Bit chilly by my standards. 

 The pool had "rules". Some of a slightly eclectic nature.

 

Anyway, in short an absolutely excellent choice for a stay in Crete, although it would be difficult without a car, as nowhere was within sensible walking distance, even though lots of facilities, shops etc were only a ten to fifteen minute drive away.