This place is a perfect home for your vacation. It is rare in life when you meet people that through their way of being, stay with you forever.
Katerina is an above and beyond host and my vocabulary is not rich enough to describe how perfect of a host she was. I will go about all the details below but if you are just looking for a quick insight then my answer is "Yes! This place is so worth it!"
Location:
The 2 storey house of which we had the full upper storey to ourselves is located in the very nice and quiet village of Alikianos. It's a short 15-20 minute drive from Chania the old Cretan capital and biggest city around and about 10-15 minutes away from their highway. It is easy to access and quite central to the western part of the island, every marketed beach and location on that side being within a 1-2h drive. It is also close (10 minutes) to a nice botanical garden, which Katerina our host recommended, and which I too recommend in turn, as they have a lovely restaurant where they make food out of what they grow there and the setting is really nice and calming. You have a range of restaurants within 30m where you can eat whether you prefer the local cheap really good food restaurants or the more expensive fancy places. Free tip: look for where the locals are eating, you'll always find good food there.
Accomodations:
As before mentioned, we had the full upper storey to ourselves, with a separate entrance, a huge space with a large living-room, a well-equipped kitchen, 3 comfortable bedrooms and 2 baths, a spacious patio and corresponding balconies for each room. Having traveled a lot with Airbnb I was quite surprised at how immaculate and new/well-kept everything was. It felt like a home not like an airbnb.
The living-room was huge with a TV, fireplace, very comfortable sofas and decorated tastefully and modernly while still keeping some of the greek flair. The kitchen was well equipped. I won't go through everything they had as it will take me an entire paragraph but imagine anything you would need in a kitchen - we had it at our disposal, coffee machine, juicer, sandwich maker, freezer, bowls, cups, glasses, cutlery, stove, all kinds of produce and snacks from biscuits to honey to fruit to milk etc. The bedrooms are all pretty similar nice and clean, the beds very comfortable, each room had a big drawer for clothes, we had access to an iron and ironing table, outlets for charging gadgets by the beds. The two bathrooms, the smaller one in one of the rooms and the other bigger one shared between the remaining 2 rooms were spotless clean with an assortment of local shampoos, body creams, etc. We had access to a washing machine and the detergent aside it. The patio which runs outside across the antechamber, and 2 of the bedrooms is very spacious with a large table and a nice view of the mountains - a very nice place to unwind for a talk and drink at the end of the night. Not to forget to mention they have room in the courtyard for you to park your car inside so it's safe.
The lovely hosts:
I feel obliged to once again praise the hosts. Katerina and her husband Yanis were above and beyond what is required from a perfect host. One strong thing that impressed me was they were so responsive to our needs and questions but without invading our privacy. Although they lived downstairs they never intruded leaving fresh towels at the entrance. Even when we were home, they would ring the doorbell and refuse to enter and intrude on the privacy. They were so welcoming as well leaving a full bag of oranges for us to make juice with, giving us parting gifts as well as bringing us a birthday cake on my birthday as they remembered in one of our earlier conversations being mentioned. They always recommended good places to see and good restaurants to eat at.
Conclusion:
Overall, Crete is a nice place to visit, but Katerina's house made the experience wonderful. I have never stayed at anyone be it friend or hotel or airbnb and felt more at home, more pampered, more part of such lovely peoples' life. I will remember Crete forever and most in part to the blessing of staying at Katerina and Yanis.