LUXURY HOTELS

The sea, the sunshine, simple mindedness: the crucial spirit of Greece that foremost appealed to numerous travellers. These 4 suites over a conventional whitewashed tavern facing over the Libyan ocean are what Greece has actually always been about. Add up meals made with home-grown ingredients and fresh fish plus meat from local marketplaces, Cretan wine direct from the vat and the 21st century glides by.

Your first impression of Agia Fotia, prior to your arrival to a hospitable welcome from the owners Stavros and Vikki, is a small white establishment puckered into the drop-off, wooden duckboards crosswise the pebble beach and a gaggle of curious goofs peering at you through the fence of their waterside inclosure. In the break of day you are able to stare across a seascape of blues and greens before having breakfast at a wooden table set within feet to the shore.

The small two hundred year old chapel of Agia Fotia dwells nearby and numerous virtually abandoned beaches, places of driftwood and gently coloured pebbles, are simply a couple of minutes’ drive away. The south seacoast bears numerous long, sandlike beaches, some Minoan remains and a dramatically placed old Monastery at Preveli. Valleys of purplish thyme, Venetian bridges, the mouth of the Kourtaliotiko Gorge and the Greco-Roman places at Gortys and Phaestos and are altogether fantastic spots to explore.