Me and my girlfriend travelled to Crete to attend a wedding and for a one-week vacation. We had no interest spending time in one of those all-inclusive temples...

...so the apartment Menelaos offered seemed to be the perfect choice. And, well, it was!

The apartment is part of the house where the family of Menelaos lives. It´s got a huge living room that fluently goes over into the kitchen with fridge, oven, stove, toaster etc...everything you need to survive without hotel-made breakfast from 7 to 9 a.m. The bedroom is big with lot of storage opportunities and a comfortable bed. Bathroom is equiped with washing machine, which is actually very practical to have when your shirt for the wedding isn´t as clean you thought it would be... ;)

The apartment is clean and well-equiped. Wireless internet access works easily.

We did not rent a car and rather covered all distances by bus and feet. The bus station is 6-8 minute-walk away. Busses to Rethymnon city (and Pigianos Kampos, Adelianos Kampos etc.) go every half hour. There´s no bus plan available at the station, but everytime we´ve been at the station at .18 o´clock and .48 o´clock respectively, the bus was there in about a minute. So the times would be 8.18, 8.48, 9.18...and so on. No guarantee. ;)

One of these best parts of our stay in Rethymnon was to get know people like Menelaos family. His parents picked us up from the bus once we arrived and immediately invited us to greek coffee and an early-day Raki at their front porch of the house. We got know their grandchildren and Menelaos´ brother. They are such nice and warm-hearted people that you won´t get to know that good while staying in a hotel. Although Menelaos couldn´t be there during the week, he answered every question we had by mail within a few hours. Talked to him on the phone, great guy, too!

Finally. If you decide to discover not only Crete itself but also its people, here´s your chance to do so by letting Menelaos and his family be your hosts.

You won´t regret it.

Maxim and Antonia