Отличный отпуск Great vacation

1. Location.
The hotel is located about 10 minutes drive from the town of Hersonissos in the village of Anissaras on the first line. Nearby, as usual, there are other hotels, and behind the house of local residents there are gardens of olive trees or just agricultural plantings. It should be said right away that vacationers are not the main income for the inhabitants of Crete, their well-being is mainly associated with crop and livestock production, hence the attitude towards tourists is very pleasant, absolutely unobtrusive, and even more so does not require money at every turn.
Let's get back to location. Very close to the hotel, unfortunately we did not find any pharmacy. The supermarket was found after 15 minutes of walking along the promenade towards Heraklion. Despite the location in the resort area, the prices there practically did not differ from those that we saw in the towns.
The distance to Hersonissos is approximately 5 km. Heraklion is about 40 km away.

There are three ways to get to the city.
a) A taxi to Hersonissos will cost 7-8 euros. You can call him directly at the reception.
b) Travel by intercity bus is much cheaper - to Hersonissos a little less than 2 euros. The buses are not old at all and look quite nice. Only here from the hotel to the bus stop on foot for about 15-20 minutes. Plus, the exact timetable could not be found. Even though we didn't try hard
c) Rent a car. This can be done through a tour operator, say in Hertz, then you will be insured from all sides, they will give you a phone number in case something happens to the car. The car will be delivered to the hotel and picked up from the hotel. The second option is to walk along the embankment and rent a car in any other rental car for 30 percent cheaper, but there may be some pitfalls. In our case, the car was rented from a rental car called SPEED, a 10-minute walk from the hotel.
Toyota Aygo cost us 35 euros, we returned it with a fuel system damaged after hitting a volleyball (fuel was actively pouring out of the car tank when the engine was running). No additional money, contrary to expectations, was not demanded from us. That is, either tour operators scare in vain or we were just lucky.

2. Infrastructure.
The hotel itself is quite small in size and number of rooms. We counted about 280 numbers. Hence its pros and cons. On the one hand, everything is close: the beach, and the pool, and bars (by the pool from 10.00 to 18.00 and next to the restaurant from 17.00) and a restaurant. On the other hand, there is only one pool, of the usual shape, of the usual size. There are no buildings that amaze with their magnificence. The restaurant is also not big, but very cozy.

In addition to the above, there is also an a la carte restaurant (during our stay it was used for Thursday evenings and grilling, national songs and dances), a sushi bar (during our stay did not work), a bar near the sea (during our stay did not work) , a library with cozy chairs and books left by vacationers (yes, there is a whole book in Russian), a gym, massages and procedures (for an additional fee), an indoor pool (arriving at the sea, we decided only to go up to it because it smelled very bleach ).
The hotel is aimed at Europeans (mainly French) after 40, as well as couples with children. Accordingly, not everyone knows Russian. In our case, the receptionist spoke only English, of the waiters in the restaurant, about a third spoke Russian, there was only one Russian-speaking animator (another Italian, German and 6 French).
On the other hand, even with not very good English, you can easily figure everything out. On linguistic grounds, sometimes you find yourself in comical situations. For example, for 5 days we talked with the bartender in English, on the sixth day it turned out quite by chance that she was from Latvia and spoke excellent Russian. We laughed for a long time.

The room (we had a Standard Sea Front) is quite large and comfortable. There is a large mirror in the hallway, a closet with a lot of hangers, a table with a small refrigerator in the room (we turned it off at night, because the noise of its work interrupted the sound of the sea coming from the open window), a mirror, 2 nice chairs with a back, a coffee table, a large bed with bedside tables and lamps. A huge full-length window leads to the balcony, more like a door, which. The window is double, one part is glass, and the second one resembles a roller shutter with special holes for turning.
One or more doors can be closed at the same time. In other words, you can admire the sea simply by opening both doors, you can through the glass one, or you can listen to the sound of the sea, at the same time arranging ventilation, but you can’t see the sea at the same time. All furniture, lamps and plumbing, if not only from the store, then certainly not old at all. The bathroom is combined with a large washbasin, mirror and bathtub.

The only significant drawback is the presence of mosquitoes. The room has a fumigator and a few locally produced tablets, but I would recommend taking your own (Raptor, Ozz or whatever), because the locals do not work very well on mosquitoes.


Beach towels are free (they can be changed every 2 days), sunbeds and umbrellas by the pool are free (although there are only 150 of them), sunbeds and umbrellas on the beach for an additional fee, namely 8 euros per day apiece. It seemed a little expensive to us and we were lying on beach towels. The beach is sand.
Closer to the sea, a little larger, and further away - quite small. The entrance to the water is a little rocky, but it does not cause any particular inconvenience. Depth increases very slowly. After 20 meters it is somewhere around 1.60, then a reef on which again waist-deep and you can take a walk, and another meter through the depth is already 2 meters - 2.50. We were in early May - the water temperature was 19-20 degrees. Let's just say it's not hot, but you can swim.

3. Nutrition.
The food is delicious and quite varied.
Each time the food offered allowed us to get acquainted with national dishes or eat something more familiar.
Breakfast (7.00 - 10.00)
For breakfast from what I remember they offered the following:
Fried eggs, boiled eggs, fried bacon, yogurt (not from a pack, but a mass reminiscent of sour cream in consistency, but it tastes a bit like fermented baked milk, I liked it), yogurt with fruits, canned fruits, apples, kiwi, bananas, oranges, all kinds of dry breakfasts, milk, cocoa, dried fruits, pancakes with various fillings, naturally tea, coffee, soft drinks (cola, fanta, sprite), biscuits, several varieties of bread (and it is very tasty there), toast, butter, margarine. There were many other things, but I mostly remember myself)
Lunch (12.30 - 14.30)
For lunch, there were always 5 completely different salads to choose from. 4 of them changed every day and were repeated only a few times during the rest. Only the Greek salad with real olives and feta cheese remained unchanged.

If for some reason you do not like the offered salads, there was always the opportunity to collect your own version of chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, blue cabbage, olives, olives and lettuce. All salads are not dressed. As a dressing, you can choose from olive oil, vinaigrette (as it turned out, this is not a salad with beets at all, but olive oil with the addition of wine vinegar and herbs), vinegar, mayonnaise, mustard and 4 more positions, which, unfortunately, I don’t remember ( sour cream is definitely not among them). There are many hot dishes with fried, stewed or baked vegetables, a national-style casserole, grilled pork or fish, and again many more options that have been forgotten over time, apples, kiwi, bananas, oranges, tea, coffee, cola, fanta , sprite, table wine (white, red, rose). For lovers of simpler food, french fries are always available. There was no soup for dinner.
For some reason, he always appeared in the evening, most often in one name. We didn’t try to evaluate it, one evening we didn’t feel like soup at all.
Dinner (18.30 - 21.30)
For dinner, again, you could put yourself a salad or find a Greek one at hand, a lot of dishes with vegetables both with and without meat, fruits, wine, drinks, be sure to have several types of delicious cheese, biscuits and small pieces of toli cake or toli pie soaked in orange jam (impossible to break away! )

In general, this is all I need, the food was varied and very tasty. Sometimes it was very hard to refuse to try something despite the risk of bursting right in the restaurant.

In the interval between the main meals at the pool bar, you could get tea, coffee, all the same drinks, alcoholic and not so cocktails and ice cream.
The bar next to the main restaurant started working in the evening closer to dinner, and there the assortment of what was included in the all inclusive is similar to the pool bar minus ice cream. We haven't tried anything more than this.

The only negative is the lack of natural juices. Instead of them, some semblance of our Yupi. That is, in principle, you can drink, but you can’t call it juice. Hence, all the cocktails that include a sufficient amount of juice tasted, frankly, not very good. I drank rum and cola and gin and tonic, from what else I had, I remember daiquiri (because of the "juices" I did not dare to try) and black Russian. In fact, there are about 10 to choose from.

4. Entertainment.
Entertainment is mainly offered by animators. In our time, the audience was lethargic and any significant number of participants gathered except for water polo in the pool (not naturally you don’t need to swim - just walk along the bottom) and beach volleyball.

In addition, the animators offered exercises, some kind of water aerobics, some kind of stretching, mini-football and petanque. In addition, you could play tennis or table tennis and mini golf on your own. All ammunition for this is issued at the reception. In addition, there is large chess on the territory (we decided to try to play quite interesting distance only on the last day), a playground. The evening program always consisted of several parts. The first part began at about six and consisted of some kind of competitions, often with dance and music. The second part is either just dancing with the participation of animators (classical music: rock and roll from the 60s, disco from the 80s and ballads from the 90s) or an evening performance of their own evening performance in English or French.

5. Excursion program.
Since the hotel was far from the city, no excursions on the streets were offered, except for an hour and a half walk on the "train" along the coast. Thus, again there were 2 options either to go by yourself or with TezTour.
Upon arrival on the island, the representative of the tour operator, among other pieces of paper, kindly handed us a brochure with a description of the excursions that are offered to our attention. There were a little less than 30 of them. The next day, when meeting with a representative of the same operator, it turned out that now only a third of them are available, in addition, places have already been booked for all but one. Here is such a diversity. We quickly agreed to at least one excursion, especially since, in principle, although it was not the one we wanted, it suited us perfectly. The tour met our expectations.
Within one day, we leisurely examined the Kniss Palace, where, according to the myths of Ancient Greece, the Minotaur lived (the most beautiful magnets are sold with poison : -)) rusty ruins, the views there and in the surroundings are amazing, if there were no stops and viewing platforms), where they visited the Cave of Zeus (after the caves of the Crimea and the Caucasus, to put it mildly, it’s not impressive), we stopped at a pottery workshop where those who wished could try themselves in the role of a real the potter and with local color had lunch in a tavern. The guide turned out to be knowledgeable not only in local history, but also in customs, culture, the current state of affairs both on the island and in the country as a whole. All her stories and answers to even the most unexpected questions about life in Crete did not leave time to get bored during several rather long journeys.

This was not enough for our fellow travelers from Vologda, and after renting a car, they invited us to go and see the Spinalonga fortress, and on the way back to walk along the streets of the town of Agios Nikolaos. The roads in Crete are quite good and the drivers are polite and careful. At least this impression was created during a one-day trip. We easily reached the town of Elounda, where skiffs leave for the island of spinalonga every half an hour from the main pier. The price of a round-trip ticket is 10 euros. The boat takes you there, waits for an hour and then takes you back. If you want to stay longer on the island, you just go to the pier at a convenient time and get on the next boat in the direction you need.
It is worth saying that boats run not only from the town of Elounda, but also from the village of Plaka (it’s faster and cheaper from there, but we deliberately chose the route from Elounda in order to enjoy a short sea journey of half an hour one way).
Spinalonga itself is a fortress at the entrance to the huge Mirabello Bay. The Venetians began to build it, later it went to the Genoese, even later to the Turks, and after the uprising, to the Greeks. Since the 20s - 50s there was a leper colony - a shelter for patients with leprosy. When it turned out that leprosy was not contagious, the shelter was closed, and the island is now a tourist attraction (by the way, yes, the entrance is 3 euros). There is something to see there, there are plenty of places to take pictures. It is absolutely optional to come with a tour if you know English. Anyway, during the inspection, you will surely meet many groups, the guides of which will tell you many interesting facts about the island. Having examined the island for 2.
At 5 o'clock we boarded a boat to Elounda. It's nice that before going on the course to the final station, they all bypass Spinalonga around to give the opportunity to admire it from the sea.
Returning to Elounda, we immediately climbed into the car and left for Agios Nikolaos. The city itself is beautiful with a yacht club, many picturesque narrow streets, taverns, souvenir shops and not only (souvenirs are mainly concentrated on the main pedestrian street, which starts from the bridge between the bay and the lake, there is more choice and cheaper ; -) ) After walking around the city for about 2 hours, we stocked up on souvenirs and set off on the reverse path. Everything went without incident, if we forget that on the last hundred meters to the finish line, our little Toyota Aigo, having run into a volleyball, began to pour gasoline on the road.

We noticed this only after overcoming this final stretch and got really scared, remembering the problems that the guide promised us if the car was not rented from Hertz. Oddly enough, there were no problems. The owner even offered to drive us the rest of the day in another car for free. True, we decided not to tempt fate and retreat until he changed his mind.