TOPLINE TRAVEL: Crete, the chic and the cheap By Jackie Annesley For You Magazine Published: 12:01, 13 July 2024 | Updated: 12:01, 13 July 2024 e-mail View comments Empire line Once part of the ancient world (Knossos is often described as Europe’s oldest Bronze Age city), Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest in the Med. It was successively part of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Venetian Republic and the Ottoman Empire before becoming an autonomous state in 1898. Storyline Tourists have been flocking to Crete since the hippie era of the late 1960s and early 70s, when the likes of Joni Mitchell , Janis Joplin and Cat Stevens turned the southern village of Matala into a peace and free-love community.
The church and military eventually drove them out, but the attractions of the island’s food and clear blue seas remain. Likewise the welcome – the Cretans have hospitality in their DNA. Over seven nights, we indulged in the extravagance of a Collection Suite at Daios Cove Luxury Resort & Villas ( daioscovecrete.
com , doubles from £525, half-board), followed by the budget charm of the Kitro Beach Hotel ( kitrohotel.gr , doubles from £95, B&B) in nearby Agios Nikolaos. Pool cool: Daios Cove luxury resort & villas.
below Horizon line First, Daios Cove, with its 290 rooms, suites and villas. The view from the beach (if you mentally lose the buoys) remains unchanged since this island was created 20 million years ago: dark sand, a translucen.