This house is beyond perfect.

Even before arriving I was in love with this place; driving up through the most incredible countryside and beautiful traditional villages, it was clear that we were heading to somewhere very special. Both Stelios and his wife Vasso were there to meet us and had brought us numerous, incredible gifts of produce from their garden, traditional cretan rusks and biscuits, honey, raki, olive oil and delicious home made pies. They must be the amongst the kindest and most welcoming people I've ever met and it was an honour to have been allowed to stay at their house and meet them.

The house itself is beautiful, I don't think the pictures do it justice. Full of character yet recently renovated so with all modern conveniences the property sits in beautiful grounds with stunning old olive trees that were heavy with olives when we visited. The surroundings are beautiful and the views from the terraces to die for. We loved just sitting outside, listing to the tinkling of the goats bells, watching birds of prey swoop and chasing lizards around the terrace (my kids loved these!).

The house is in a beautiful, quiet, traditional village, but also has a tavern next door which is about as authentic as you can get, with lovely food (try the lamb coooked on the wood fire - it's amazing!). A short drive away is the bigger village/small town of Vrissez which is very green and pretty and has all the facilities you need.

We had lots of plans of places we wanted to see for our trip to Crete, but, apart from walking the Imbros Gorge, we ended staying around the house with a few trips to Vrissez for supplies. This place is so incredible lovely and special that it seemed a shame to spend time anywhere else!

My only regret about this place is that we left Stelios an Vasso with a bit of a problem to sort (which was my fault) and I was gutted as both they and their home are so wonderful. They were kind and gracious with us about the issue though, and are honestly the most remarkable and welcoming people.

This property gave us a little taste of heaven - thank you so much Stelios and Vasso.xxxx