Travel Telegraph — The maps show Chiona as being a little over 100 miles to the east of Heraklion airport: it took me a good two and a half hours to drive.
Setting apart, it’s the sort of taverna where the cutlery arrives in the bread basket, the wine in carafes, and if you ask what fish is on the menu they’ll say, “we’ll show you what we’ve got”, and take you to the fridge. This is authentic Greece – Greece as it used to be. That’s the secret of eastern Crete: it could be the Aegean 40 years ago.
I was there because four new villas have been built at the relatively deserted southern end of the mile-long Kouremenos beach. That’s a bit of an event in these parts, particularly as it’s unlikely that any more building will be allowed nearby. Development is tricky anyway because of the risk of disturbing any lurking archaeology, but since the villas were completed a year ago the immediate area has been declared a nature reserve and any further building is supposedly prohibited.
The nearest village, Palekastro, is just over a mile away and is as low-key as its surroundings. The “square”, where the main road splays either side of a restaurant, may lack the shape of a square but it has all the accoutrements – a church, four palm trees, a mini-market and nine cafes and restaurants. It’s where a fishmonger arrives in a pick-up truck, announces his arrival through a loudspeaker, and sells his fish from white polystyrene boxes. Round the corner there’s a patisserie selling homemade spinach and cheese pies – spanakopita and tiropitakia – and baklava pastries, sticky with honey and crunchy with pistachio nuts.
Enclosed in their own gated compound, each has a good-sized terrace with a 30ft swimming pool, outdoor dining area, sun beds, brick barbecues and gardens. The gardens were still immature when I was there but are big enough to assure privacy. There are some thoughtful touches: a fresh water shower at the gate leading from the beach, cool-bags for picnics and shaded car parking.
Five minutes’ walk away is an excellent taverna which will also deliver hot meals. All in all they demonstrate a canny understanding of the kind of couples who are going to stay and their level of expectation.
For them the beach is probably not the biggest selling point. Which is just as well, unless they wind surf.
Kouremenos is renowned for its wind. Most days the north-westerly meltemi funnels into the bay to the exhilaration of two wind surf centres and the aggravation of bathers whose legs are peppered with gritty sand. The beach opposite the villas, though, is uncrowded, safe and scenic. It ends in the sheer cliffs of a great heap of a hill called Kastri. Villa dwellers are likely to be as interested in excursions away from Palekastro as immersion in the Med. There is much to see.
The Toplou monastery is one of the oldest, largest and richest on Crete. It is also one of the most belligerent. The name comes from the Turkish word for cannonball, which is thought to relate to a gun mounted on the monastery when the Venetians fortified it in the 16th century. In the Second World War resistance fighters used the monastery to hide a radio transmitter. Its discovery cost the abbot his life. Today, along with displays of ancient books and icons, one room is devoted to WW2 relics, including a radio set and a Sten gun.
At Zakros there are the extensive ruins of a Minoan palace. Behind the site is a ravine named the “Gorge of the Dead”, so called because of the number of Minoan tombs found there. The walking trail through it is a climax to the Imax-scale landscapes around it.
There are less well-preserved remains of one of the largest cities of Minoan Crete at Palekastro. Roussolakkos was inhabited between about 2500 and 1200BC.
