8 days in Crete: Here’s what we did

My wife and I recently spent a lovely eight days on the Greek island of Crete. Neither of us had been before, but we knew a few people who had and who all enjoyed their trips there.

We hadn’t originally planned on visiting Crete this year, but when I had some Amex Fine Hotels + Resorts® (FHR) credits to burn last year, a property in Crete showed up on FHR with reasonable pricing for dates over my birthday, so we decided to turn it into a vacation.

Well, a working vacation as I didn’t take any time off during the eight days we stayed there. As a result, we didn’t explore the island as much as we might have had this been pure vacation/exploration time.

Still, we had a wonderful time in Crete, so here’s everything that we got up to, as well as a few other places we didn’t make it to but which seemed worth highlighting.

How we got to Crete

Shae and I live in the north of England and our closest “major” airport is Newcastle. Ryanair operates seasonal nonstop flights between Newcastle and Chania; I can’t remember if they weren’t bookable for our flight out (we visited Crete in late April/early May) or if the cost was just too expensive once taking into account seat selection and baggage fees, but we decided to fly out of London Heathrow. This had the added benefit of being able to spend a few days down south upon our return to meet up with some friends.

I ended up booking us award flights on British Airways as they have nonstop flights to Chania from both London Heathrow and London Gatwick; we picked Heathrow. I believe the one-way off-peak award cost was 15,000 Avios per person + $1 or $2 in taxes and fees. When booking with BA Avios, you can choose to redeem fewer Avios and pay more for taxes/fees. There are various thresholds and while the first one or two options usually represent poor value, at the third or fourth threshold you normally get much better value.

As a result, I selected the option that cost 9,250 Avios + $31 in taxes/fees. That meant we were paid ~$30 more per person, but saved 5,750 Avios per person which seemed like a good trade-off as it’s like buying Avios for 0.54 cents per point. Even better than that, I was able to pay for the $62 in taxes/fees on one of our Hilton Honors American Express Aspire cards. That has an up to $50 per quarter airline credit which, unlike Platinum/Business Platinum airline fee credits, can be used for airfare. That made our net cost $12, or $6 per person + 9,250 Avios which was a decent deal. I forget what the actual cash cost was, but redeeming Avios was definitely the better option.

For our return flight we did something somewhat similar, although we redeemed 11,750 Avios + $21 per person. If I recall correctly, with our flight to Crete the best value option was at the fourth threshold of increased taxes/fees, whereas on our way back it was at the third threshold, hence the difference. Again, the cash pricing made it worth redeeming Avios and we paid the $42 in taxes/fees with a different Hilton Aspire card which meant that was fully covered by the airline credit.

In case you’re not familiar with Crete, it has two main airports: Chania on the northwest end of the island and Heraklion on the northeast(ish) side. Crete is a surprisingly large island and it takes ~2.5 hours to drive between those two airports, so it’s definitely worth bearing in mind where you’re staying when choosing which of the two airports to fly in and out of.

There aren’t any nonstop flights between the US and Crete, but you can fly to Chania and/or Heraklion from most major airports in Europe, so you hopefully wouldn’t need to book a convoluted routing in order to get there from the US. The two airports are also served by many European low cost carriers, so it’s worth looking at those if you’re traveling light and there’s no reasonably priced award availability for that final leg.

How we got around

If you’re only looking to stay at your hotel/resort during your visit in Crete and it’s near one of the two airports, and/or you’re happy booking excursions where transport is included, you wouldn’t need to rent a car.

However, I’m incredibly glad that we did book a rental car in order to explore Crete where we wanted, when we wanted. I imagine rental car pricing is more expensive in the summer due to Crete’s popularity as a summer holiday destination for Europeans, but it was very reasonably priced for our travel dates.

For our eight days, we booked an economy car (a Kia Picanto) via Hertz which cost a total of $196.99 (plus $75 to add me as an additional driver). We booked that via Capital One Travel in order to use some of Shae’s $300 credits from her Venture X cards. There were slightly cheaper options if we wanted to drive a manual (stick-shift), but we prefer automatics. We also chose Hertz as they’re based at Chania airport rather than being off-site like some other major rental car companies (I believe Alamo was off-site).

Speaking of off-site rentals, there were also some much cheaper rentals available via rental car companies I’d never heard of that weren’t located at the airport. We drove past at least a couple of them on the way to our hotel. They might be perfectly trustworthy, but they were located in these random gravel parking lots a reasonable distance from the airport and gave shady used car salesperson vibes. Like I said, they might be perfectly trustworthy, but be aware of that in case you book one and wonder what you’ve gotten yourself into when rocking up in a shuttle at a dimly-lit lot late at night after a long travel day.

Where we stayed in Crete

Domes Noruz Chania

We spent the first five nights at Domes Noruz Chania, a property that’s part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection but which we booked through Amex FHR. The pricing was ~$265 per night which seemed like a good use of our FHR credits, although room rates can get much more expensive in the summer.

We booked the stay using a mix of hotel credits on both my cards and Shae’s. Now that Amex lets you enter another guest’s details as the main person staying, we entered my name for all five nights for a couple of reasons. One is that would mean there’d be fewer hassles with having to check out and back in each day.

The other reason is that because we booked via FHR rather than a standard Online Travel Agency (OTA), we were able to add my Marriott Bonvoy account number and have it link properly. In addition to earning Marriott points and elite night credits on the stay, it meant we’d receive elite benefits thanks to my Lifetime Platinum status.

Overall, we very much enjoyed our stay. Service was a little patchy, although that can probably be mostly attributed to the fact that the hotel had only opened for the season the day before our arrival. They did have great elite recognition though, from multiple welcome amenities to an additional cake and bottle of Prosecco on my birthday to a fantastic proactive upgrade of a two story ‘Wellness Loft 1 Bedroom Suite with pool view & whirlpool.’

You can read my full review of Domes Noruz Chania here.

JW Marriott Crete Resort & Spa

When researching flights back to the UK at the end of our trip, there wasn’t any availability on what was originally due to be our final day in Crete, but there was availability a few days later.

As a result, we decided to extend our trip by a few days. There were quite a few points-bookable options in Chania, with the JW Marriott Crete Resort & Spa particularly catching my eye. It’s a relatively new property (it opened in June 2025) and we’d never stayed at a JW Marriott before, so this seemed like the ideal opportunity.

I reached 50 elite nights with Marriott last year (which included 15 nights from a personal Marriott card, 15 from a Marriott business card and 10 from the Marriott debit card in the UK) which meant I was able to select five Nightly Upgrade Awards as my 50 night Choice Benefit. I applied three of those to our reservation and it paid off as we were upgraded to a $1,000+ per night Executive Suite a few days before our stay.

As you can see in the photo above, the resort has stunning views and that’s seemingly the case no matter where you are on the property. It’s a beautifully-designed resort with three outdoor swimming pools (plus one inside). Two of those outdoor pools are heated which was perfect for our stay as we visited in the off-season; while we had mostly amazing weather while at Domes Noruz Chania, the weather turned during our three days at the JW Marriott and so we appreciated the warmer pools.

Although the service wasn’t up to par there either, the food was delicious and we had a nice, relaxing time. There’s no proper beach at this resort, although there is one just up the road. The incredibly rocky “beach” does have a raised wooden boardwalk with many cabanas though, so you can still enjoy the sun and sea views.

Check out my full review of the JW Marriott Crete Resort & Spa here.

What we did in Crete

As I mentioned earlier, this was a working vacation and so we didn’t have too much time to get out and explore the island seeing as we also wanted to enjoy the resorts we were staying at. However, we did get to explore several interesting places on the island.

Old Venetian Port of Chania

This was one of the highlights for me as it’s such a charming part of town.

Parking is a nightmare if you’re not prepared; thankfully Shae had done some research beforehand and scoped out a larger parking lot. You can find it here on Google Maps if you want to get directions, but definitely don’t count on finding street parking and be prepared for narrow streets in downtown Chania.

It’s only a few minutes walk from that parking lot to the Old Venetian Port of Chania, taking you down quaint alleyways that make you feel like you’re in some kind of small Tuscan village.

The alleyway opened out to the port, with the area festooned with cafes, restaurants, and bars looking out at Chania Harbor View and the Lighthouse of Chania, with its wonderfully clear water in front of you.

Shae and I decided to walk around the harbor out to the lighthouse. If you do this, be sure to wear sunscreen and/or a hat; I made the mistake of not doing this and even though it was only ~70-75° that day, the sun was beating down and I ended up on the verge of sunburn, especially having buzzed most of my hair off the week before.

The walkway out to the lighthouse has three levels and you can walk on any depending on how high up you want to be’ I wouldn’t recommend the highest level though as it’s a long drop down onto rocks on the other side. There are also a few spots to explore the fortifications.

Looking back at the port from that vantage point was interesting because it gives you a perfect view of Crete’s landscape, with the shoreline and water in the foreground, hills behind, and mountains behind that. In addition to not being aware of how large Crete was before our visit, I hadn’t realized how varied its terrain and landscape is. Seeing snow on the mountains in an island in the Mediterranean was even more surprising to me.

In addition to the variety of restaurants and cafes in the port, there are lots of cute little stores as well, so it was a wonderful place to spend a few hours between when we checked out of Domes Noruz Chania and in to the JW Marriott.

Ancient Olive Tree of Vouves

About a 30 minute drive to the west of Chania is the Ancient Olive Tree of Vouves (find it here on Google Maps). It’s one of the oldest olive trees in the world and although it’s not known exactly how old it is (its heartwood has been lost which you’ll see in one of the photos below), it’s thought to be anything from 2,000-5,000 years old.

As you can see, the tree is massive: the circumference at its base is 12.55 meters (~41 feet). Despite being so old, it still produces olives. Olives ripen in the fall and winter, so we were too early to see any on the tree; its flowers were starting to bloom though.

In addition to the tree, on site there’s a cafe/gift shop, as well as a free, small museum with artifacts that have been used to grow and harvest olives over the years.

Outside there are other olive oil-producing artifacts including a grinding millstone, olive press, and more.

Arkoudiotissa Cave (AKA Bear Cave) & Katholikon Monastery (sort of)

When researching things to do in Crete, we saw that Arkoudiotissa Cave (commonly known as Bear Cave, but also sometimes Arkoudospilio Cave) and Katholikon Monastery weren’t too far to the north of the JW Marriott we’d be staying at, so on our penultimate day in Crete we made the relatively short drive up there to visit both of them.

Confession time: we should’ve done more research.

After parking in the free parking lot (find it here on Google Maps) and paying the €2.50 (~$3) per person entry fee, we started walking towards the cave as that was the first of the two attractions. We’d expected both locations to be a relatively short walk away, but that’s not the case.

The cave is closest and the rocky trail turned out to be about one mile in each direction. Be sure to wear good footwear as the terrain is extremely uneven. I was wearing flip-flops and was fine as I pretty much live in them and am used to walking/hiking in them, so the hike down and up wasn’t too much of an issue for me. For normal people who don’t live their life in flip-flops though, tennis shoes or hiking boots (if you’ve brought them with you) would be a more advisable option.

You’ll know when you’re approaching the cave as there are some ruins outside.

The cave can be found on the right hand side with the monastic structure outside and was once used as a temple to the goddess Artemis.

‘Arkoudiotissa’ means ‘she-bear’, hence its nickname of Bear Cave. It’s named this due to a large stalagmite inside that resembles a bear.

We’d seen the (somewhat nearby) Katholikon Monastery in the distance on the way down and originally wanted to visit that too.

Beforehand, we’d assumed the cave and that monastery were closer to each other than they actually are. The trail to the monastery looked like it went down into a gorge and was probably another three miles or more round trip. The hike down to Bear Cave had already taken longer than we’d anticipated and it was going to be almost all uphill on the way back, not to mention the fact that we hadn’t brought any water with us seeing as we’d figured it’d be a short stroll. We therefore decided against continuing over to the monastery and headed back to our car after visiting the cave. If you want to hike down to the monastery too, give yourself plenty of time and bring water.

Where we ate & drank in Crete

Something I want to note before sharing about where we ate and drank in Crete is how impressed we were by the service we received in all the following places. While the service we received at both hotels we stayed at wasn’t impressive, the service we received everywhere else was excellent. Servers were unfailingly genuine, warm, and welcoming, so it definitely gave us a much better impression of service in Crete than we’d have gotten had we just remained at the hotels/resorts.

Anoskeli Winery

To celebrate my birthday, we went wine tasting at Anoskeli Winery and had an amazing experience (find it here on Google Maps). On our 50 state road trip we went wine tasting at dozens of wineries around the US. We had some great experiences at some of those, but our time at Anoskeli was definitely one of the best overall wine tasting experiences we’ve ever had.

If you do go for a wine tasting at Anoskeli, be prepared to spend ~1.5 hours there—it’s not a quick tasting at a bar like at some wineries. Instead, we took a seat outside on their patio in the shade.

Before trying any wine, we got to do an olive oil tasting and were also provided with a plateload of sourdough bread.

That was followed up by a charcuterie plate for us to have during our wine tasting.

We then got to try five wines—one white, one rosé, two reds, and a red dessert wine—and they were all very nice.

The experience finished off with a shot of some kind of spirit which is made from leftover grapes.

The wine tasting experience was made even better by Efi and Johanna who served us; they were both friendly and welcoming and spoke excellent English which was helpful as neither Shae nor I speak Greek. The tasting was very reasonably priced too; I believe it cost €20 (~$23.25) per person which is cheaper than wine tastings in Napa, not to mention the fact that it included a charcuterie board, lots of bread, and an olive oil tasting.

If you’ll be staying in Chania and enjoy wine tasting, I’d highly recommend checking out Anoskeli. We ended up buying a bottle of wine to go, along with some olive oil and other stuff as gifts.

Cretan Brewery

After finishing up with our wine tasting, we were driving along and spotted a sign for Cretan Brewery and decided to make an impromptu stop there (find it here on Google Maps).

They had ~10 beers on tap and they offer flights, so I was able to try all of them. They were all much better than I was expecting and we had a lovely time sitting out on their deck in the shade, looking out over the avocado orchard below.

Seeing as it was my birthday, Shae offered to be the designated driver. Cretan Brewery had a number of local sodas available. She chose the one they described as being most like Sprite, although it was much more of a bubblegum flavor than Sprite-like.

Fork N’ Knife

When staying at Domes Noruz Chania, we had dinner at the hotel on our first and final nights, but the other three nights we ate out at nearby restaurants.

Unlike the JW Marriott that doesn’t have much within walking distance, Domes Noruz Chania is based in a neighborhood where there are tons of restaurants, cafes, and stores within a ten minute walk. That gave us the perfect opportunity to try out some local Greek/Cretan food.

The first restaurant we visited was called Fork N’ Knife (find it here on Google Maps). It’s owned and run by a husband and wife team and they provided excellent service. The husband was front of house, hustling from table to table, while his wife was the chef.

We started off with appetizers of pita bread with tzatziki and stuffed vine leaves. Both of these were tasty; we ended up having tzatziki with almost every dinner in Crete and it was all excellent—much better than store-bought tzatziki which is the only kind we’ve had in the past.

For our entrées, we both ordered a gyros plate that featured meat atop a pile of fries, more pita, and a side salad. This was mostly very good; the only downside was that the fries weren’t particularly crispy and, being topped with the meat, ended up being a little soggy. They didn’t taste bad though and we still enjoyed our meal.

Artemis Restaurant

The next night we wandered around a little to see if we could find a restaurant that caught our eye. It didn’t take long before we came upon the cute-looking Artemis Restaurant (find it here on Google Maps) which is on the grounds of Dionyssos Village Hotel Apartments. The outdoor seating looked out on their swimming pool and beautiful gardens.

Our friendly server brought over some bread and tzatziki to start things off.

We didn’t order any appetizers that evening which turned out to be a wise choice as the portion sizes for our entrées were very large.

I was interested in getting the Kleftiko which was tender fresh lamb leg with red onions, diced tomatoes, garlic, carrots, potatoes, thyme, feta cheese, pepper, and white wine. However, I don’t like cheese and it apparently wasn’t possible to get it without the feta due to the nature of how it’s prepared, so I went with their kebab instead which came with fries and pita.

The fries were like butterfly fries and were deliciously crispy—a much better texture than the fries at Fork N’ Knife. The kebabs were very good too.

Shae ordered their chicken lemonato which was chicken cooked in the oven, with potatoes, thyme, mustard, and lemon juice. Her portion size was also very big—perfect if you’re looking to carb-load due to how many potatoes there were, but she wasn’t able to finish it all due to quite how much food there was (the potatoes were larger than they appear in the photo below).

Our meal finished off with a shot of…something. We didn’t order it, but our server brought it over for us to have to finish things off.

Zygos Grill & Pizza

On our penultimate night staying at Domes, we went for dinner at a restaurant we’d walked past a couple of nights before.

Zygos Grill & Pizza (find it here on Google Maps) looked cute on the outside and had a tasty-looking menu posted out front, so we decided to dine there that night.

It was another nice evening so we sat outside and, once again, we had a very friendly server.

I hadn’t had chicken souvlaki yet during our visit—or ever from what I can remember—so I ordered that. As with pretty much all the food we had in Crete, it was very good.

Shae’s never been a big fan of kebabs and gyros, so I was pleasantly surprised when she ordered their gyro plate; hopefully our trip to Crete has converted her to its deliciousness.

I’m not sure if it’s a Cretan custom, but at dinner the night before we’d received a free shot of something to end our meal, while at Zygos we received a complimentary dessert. I don’t know exactly what it was, but it seemed to be some kind of chocolate/hazelnut thing and was very nice.

Galileo Cafe

After exploring the Old Venetian Port of Chania in the blazing sun, we were ready for some kind of refreshment. There are tons of restaurants on the waterfront, but we weren’t hungry enough to have lunch and so just wanted somewhere to have a quick drink.

While wandering along in search of somewhere to have a drink, we spotted Galileo Cafe and that seemed like the perfect spot (find it here on Google Maps). It was bang in the middle of the port and so we had a great view looking out.

I ordered a Coke Zero, Shae had a mimosa, and we shared some ice cream. The ice cream wasn’t the greatest, but it was still nice and refreshing to have. Once again, the server was very friendly.

What we didn’t do in Crete

As I mentioned earlier, Crete is a large island and there’s lots to do. Here are a few places we didn’t make it to, but which we would make an effort to check out if returning.

Spinalonga

Spinalonga is a small island off the coast near Heraklion. It was once used as a fortress, then as a refuge for Muslims, then as a leper colony. I first heard about it years ago because my mum read a novel called The Island by Victoria Hislop (our affiliate link) which is set in and near Spinalonga. She fell in love with the book and so she made sure to visit Spinalonga when going on holiday in Crete about a decade ago and raved about how much she enjoyed that day trip.

Everything I’ve seen about Spinalonga online also makes it sound like a fascinating place to visit. Seeing as we were based in Chania for our vacation though, we’d have had a five hour round trip drive to Heraklion, not to mention a round trip ferry ride out to Spinalonga and perhaps several hours on the island. That wasn’t worth it for us on this trip, but if we do return to Crete then I’ll almost certainly book a few days in Heraklion so that we can visit Spinalonga and see more of that side of Crete.

Samaria Gorge

I love hiking, so Shae was considering arranging a guided hike in Samaria Gorge for my birthday.  However, she also knows that I’m a night owl who doesn’t like to get up early in the morning, so she ran it by me before booking it as it leaves very early in order to avoid the heat of the afternoon.

I decided against doing it during this trip as I just wanted to relax and sleep in a little, but it’ll be high on my list of things to do during a future visit. It’s a ~10 mile round trip hike, with the journey out taking you down into the gorge, but the return journey seemingly being mostly uphill.

The photos online look stunning and I’ve seen many people mention that this is a highlight of Crete, so add this to your list if you enjoy hiking too.

Beaches

Crete apparently has numerous beautiful beaches and coves, so if spending all day in the sand and sun appeals to you, be sure to research beaches that’ll be near where you’re staying.

Balos Beach Trail

Speaking of beaches, even if you’re not interested in spending all day on a beach, there’s a trail that takes you above Balos Beach that apparently has stunning views. We should’ve done this while staying at the Domes hotel as it was a much longer drive away when we were at the JW Marriott, so we never got around to doing it.

Your suggestions

If you’ve ever visited Crete, please share your recommendations in the comments so that other readers (and myself!) can get some tips on other worthwhile places to visit there.