Hotels in Crete – Head for Heraklion

Crete, like the rest of Greece, has wonderful beaches and a stunning coastline. Hotels in Crete mostly cater for beach holidays, and the interior is less attractive,dry and dusty. If you’re a fan of big cacti you’ll be blown away by the monstrous spiky things that grow willy nilly all over the place. Fantastic things – Bougainvillea is beautiful but these boys take the gardener’s biscuit! Hotels in Crete? There’s absolutely loads. Try the Kastro hotel in Heraklion, a few miles from the airport. Very convenient for the town centre and shopping and a great base from which to explore the entire island. You can’t miss it – just head for the archaeological museum, it is right next door.

Crete Hotels – From low cost to luxury

Hotels in Crete, like anywhere else, vary tremendously. It depends what you’re after. You’ll find loads of really low cost, simple rooms and apartments, plenty of mid-priced family hotels and apartment complexes, and the usual massive hotel blocks with thousands of rooms. The Doge Traditional Hotel is a Venetian house built in the 1300s, with eight comfortable rooms for 2-5 people. Lovely, relatively pricey and only 500m from the beach.

Hotels in Crete – Historical treasures and gods galore

The gorgeous Blue Palace resort and Spa sits on a cliff, the height of luxury with private pools, and delightful surroundings. As hotels in Crete go, this one’s a beauty. Like all Greek tourist spots, behind the scenes Crete has a fascinating history and it is stuffed with the remnants of ancient Greece’s lively, intellectual, pantheistic culture. You can almost imagine Neptune (or is he the Roman god of the sea?) rising out of the ocean with his hair full of banana-boaters, topless sunbathers and windsurfing kit. The Blue Palace is one of the best hotels in Crete – book your own personal bungalow, suite or villa and dive into your holiday…

Sound like heaven? Book your Crete hotel here and now!

Or take a tour round our hotel pages for Hotels in Athens, Hotels in Faliraki, Hotels in Greece, Hotels in Kos, Hotels in Rhodes, and Hotels in Zante

Flights to Crete – help the locals celebrate

Flights to Crete are most likely to drop you off at Heraklion airport, confusingly also called Kazantzakis airport. There are airports at Chania (AKA Daskalogiannis Airport - why?!) and there’s also a little airport called Sitia. Thankfully Sitia doesn’t have an alias… enough is enough. Sitia airport is planning to take on charter flights soon, so flights to Crete will soon come in three flavours. Crete is a real treat, a delightful place with lovely locals. Like the rest of Greece, the Cretan year is one long festival with all sorts of exciting stuff going on whenever you visit. Choose flights to Crete if you’re into helping people celebrate… every town has its own patron saint’s day and they really push the boat out. The best? Book flights to Crete that’ll let you join in with the Sitia Kornania festival, Rethymno's Renaissance Festival, Kyrvia Festival in Ierapetra or Iraklio's festival of summer arts

Crete Flights – Fly into Heraklion Airport

Most charter flights to Crete land at Heraklion, an ordinary and fairly ugly sort of town but very convenient for exploring the rest of this fabulous island. The airport itself is only three miles from the city and there are plenty of good car hire firms there touting for business. If, for you, flights to Crete equal freedom of choice, fly to Heraklion and from there the Cretan world’s your oyster. You don’t have to go far to discover quiet fishing villages and ports stuffed with authentic Greek culture.

Flights to Crete – Rivers, lakes and forests

You don’t imagine Crete being a place of rivers. In the summer it is exceptionally hot and the countryside inland is parched, dry and brown throughout the peak season. But there are rivers, even though they’re mostly very short and dry up completely in summer. One exception is the River Preveli to the south, in the Rethymnon district, another’s the Vrisses River in Chania. There are even a handful of stunning lakes – head off for Kournas lake, surrounded by bars and pretty tavernas. A lovely place to while away an evening. Many people use flights to Crete as a dropping off point for the local islands, a sprinkling of stunning little jewels in the turquoise sea including Gavdos, Hrissi, Koufonisia and Gramvoussa. Pronounce that lot properly and we’ll send you a Blue Peter Badge.

Book your flights to Crete here.