Solo Travel to Crete in the summer

I stayed for a week on my own in the Idi Hotel, located just outside the lovely mountain town of Zaros, about one hour south of Heraklion. This is a family owned hotel with various members of a large extended family - everyone is very friendly and welcoming. I had a lovely ground floor bungalow with a terrace, just steps away from the gardens, filled with orange, olive and bougainvillea trees, which provide shade from the sun. The room was pretty basic, but had everything required - air con, tv, fridge and Wi-Fi.

The other guests were mostly German or French - some families, some couples, some singles. The typical length of stay was between four nights and a week - if hiring a car then it would be easy to tour around. There is a lovely swimming pool to cool down in - hammocks under the shade of the trees, and plenty of sun beds. You do need to bring your own pool towels.

In the surrounding farms I saw peacocks, donkeys, goats with tinkling bells round their necks, and heard roosters crowing mournfully, as well as crickets chirping in the fir trees. The mountains are renowned for large birds of prey and I certainly saw buzzards. There were pomegranates, figs, citrus fruit, and prickly pears growing alongside the olive groves and even in August it felt very “green”.

The half board upgrade at the hotel is ridiculously cheap and provides you with whatever special the kitchen is serving that night. Trout fresh from the neighbouring fish farm is a speciality and was very good. I also had grilled peppers stuffed with cheese, fried cheese balls (little bits of heaven), moussaka, fried chicken with Greek salad, lamb kleftiko, pork souvlaki, tzatziki, grilled courgettes, and even snails!

I would recommend hiring a car to see as much of the island as possible - it is a big island though, and the drive from the airport to the hotel is an hour. Going to one of the lovely authentic beach resorts on the South coast is a 40-minute drive. The scenery is dramatic as the island is bisected by various large mountain ranges. There is a famous gorge walk (Rouvas) which starts about 1km north of the hotel - this would be beautiful in the Spring time with lots of flowers and a cool stream running along the bottom of the gorge.