We are regular visitors to Greek islands in the last 20 years and this is our second time on Kea. We found Kea to be the perfect choice for summer holiday from London/UK with two small kids, 2.5yrs and 5 yrs, with many flight options to Athens, short taxi ride to Lavrio and critically only 1hr ferry to the island.
Kea is also perfectly organised for tourism but it is amazingly still not overcrowded nor spoiled yet even though it is only a few hours from Athens. Relatively small proportion of foreign tourists is a big plus for us.
We have booked accommodation with Eleni only one week in advance. We have enough experience with bookings in Greece so we went for it even though they didn’t have any reviews. And I must say it proved to be much better than we had expected.
It’s a ground level of the house they have just built for them selves to enjoy their holidays and weekends with family and fiends. And it shows. It feels welcoming, everting works perfectly, it’s made to be convenient and comfortable, it is build to last, sparkling clean, with loads of character and personal touches, all amenities are there. There is no washing machine which is not a big deal unless you have small kids. They where happy to help us with that as well but we didn’t use it in the case end. In spite of being new build it feels Cycladic, with its thought-full touches, stone and concrete architecture. We were slightly worried that without air-conditioning our kids may not have a good night’s sleep but even during the warmest hours it feels very cool, definitely better sleep than within an air-conditioned equivalent.
This is our second accommodation during this visit to Kea. We split the stay between 7-day Otzias, where we can be close to Gialiskari beach which is the most convenient beach for the kids, and this 5-day stay where we can be close to Ioulida and Spathi beach. One of the key advantages of Eleni’s house is that it is only a 3 min drive to Ioulida and you can actually park your car over night (otherwise impossible to so in Ioulida). It is also literally 50 meters away from possibly the best kept secret restaurant in Kea, ΤΟ ΠΕΡΑΣΜΑ ΣΤΟ ΓΥΡΙΣΤΗ. They serve truly authentic homemade Greek food at reasonable price, fantastic service and the place is popular for dinners. There is also a small supermarket further 30m away so you can get almost all essentials within the walking distance.
I cannot praise Eleni and her husband enough for their generous hospitality and responsiveness before and during our holiday. They went out of their way to get the new cot for our young son in a very short time, they have accommodated check in and check out time so we didn’t have any hassle moving from one accommodation on Kea to another. We have been treated with the wine from their vineyard on the hill above the house and Eleni’s aubergine dip and Greek moussaka made us feel at home.
And probably reminded us why we love Greece so much and we keep coming back.
Highly recommend!