The Belle Etoile apartments are gorgeous. The actual apartment was clean and spacious and the balcony was lovely with a great view. The breakfast choices are very generous and you can choose to have it delivered to your room any time within a 4 hour slot. The people that worked at the apartments were lovely and helpful and there were some nice touches like welcome drinks. The apartments were also cleaned every day which we weren’t expecting.
The bar and pool area particularly exceeded our expectations. There was nice music playing, happy hour two times a day and a well priced food menu with lots of options. The Greek salad for 6 euros was particularly fab! It was so pleasant that we spent a lot of our holiday just chilling by the pool. The view from the pool is also stunning.
The apartments are situated about a 10 minute walk (up hill) into a small town which has a couple of small shops and restaurants. You can also start walking from this town and do a two hour walk along the coastal cliffs to Oía. It’s about a 20-25 minute walk into Fira town (downhill) though and there are no footpaths on the side of the roads which makes the walk less pleasant/slightly risky especially at night when it is dark. A taxi into/from town is 15 euros each way so if you don’t have a car and are not comfortable walking in the road this might be an issue for you. There are buses that are somewhat regular but you have to walk in the opposite direction to Fira to get the bus that goes that and so it probably takes longer than walking.
Overall it was an extremely pleasant stay and I would definitely recommend staying here.