Crete's coastline is awash with wonderful beaches and you'll be spoilt for choice when it comes to deciding which one to head for. There are beaches enough here to satisfy the package holiday hordes, Robinson Crusoe types, young backpackers and even spawning sea turtles. The busiest beaches offer all kinds of watersports and tourist facilities but you'll need to take your own water, snacks and sunshade to the more inaccessible coves.
The most developed beach resorts in Crete are on the north coast to the east of Iraklio and west of Hania.
The twin resorts of Hersonissos and Malia are bursting at the seams with hotels, amusement arcades, watersports and leisure activities. Top attractions include two big water parks - Aqua Splash and Star Beach - which together provide endless hours of family entertainment. There are enough chutes, tubes, white knuckle slides and river rides to keep the kids happy for days on end. Beachfront entertainment along this stretch of coastline includes everything from bungee jumping to bumper cars. The Aqua World aquarium in Hersonissos is another favourite visitor attraction. Walking around the streets on Greece holidays is like visiting an open air museum, the endless sunshine makes discovering various iconic landmarks a joy!

Castello City Hotel - Crete
ideal choice for the visitor of the city of Heraklion in Crete giving the feeling of a boutique luxury hotel. Castello City was designed so as to satisfy the highest demands of its select clientele, professional as well as recreational. It is open throughout the year and its convenient location offers easy access from and to the airport or the port, being at the same time very near to the commercial centre of the city. The Hotel Castello comprises 68 standard and superior rooms, Luxury Junior and Business suites...

All hotels in Crete - Click here

Castello city, Lato Boutique, Aldemar Royal Mare, Korifi suites, Blue palace, Atlantis, Flisvos beach, St. Nicolas bay

Perle resort, Agapi beach, La Stella, Aldemare Cretan village, Dimitris Villa hotel, Cretan Mallia park, Astali, Renieris

Beachfront entertainment along this stretch of coastline includes everything from bungee jumping to bumper cars. The Aqua World aquarium in Hersonissos is another favourite visitor attraction. The Kolokitha Peninsula, east of Malia, offers rather different attractions in the form of a sunken city and the island of Spinalonga which was used to isolate lepers until the 1950s. If you snorkel near the causeway which joins the southern end of the peninsula to the mainland you'll be able to see the outlines of buildings and columns from the ancient city of Olous. And if you take a boat ride out to Spinalonga you'll pass the islet of Agioi Pantes - home to about 200 curly-horned wild Cretan goats which are a protected species living only here and in the Samaria Gorge.
The Caribbean-style beach at Vai, in the eastern corner of the island, is on every tour operator's list of "must do" day excursions. The beach boasts Europe's only indigenous palm forest and is a wonderful spot for a day's swimming and sun-soaking despite hordes of day trippers in July and August. You'll find quieter beaches over the headlands to the north and south. Matala is the best known beach on the south coast - famous for its sandstone cliffs peppered with caves which were a notorious hippy haunt in the 1960s attracting the likes of Joni Mitchell and a motley selection of "psychedelic baby" types. The caves were originally cut as Roman tombs in the 1 st century AD and were later occupied by Cretan shepherds and used by the Germans in WW2 to store supplies. Avoid the crowds on the main beach by heading to the superb Red Beach (so-called because of its clay-coloured sand) about 20 minutes walk across a rocky promontory.
Further west along the south coast you'll come to the lovely sandy beach of Plakias, with fine sand, big waves and a stunning mountain backdrop. This once tranquil fishing village is still relatively underdeveloped and is a popular haven for backpackers due to the presence of some cheap and cheerful rooms to rent and absence of package industry tourism. Nearby Preveli Beach is one of the most picturesque of all the islands beaches - fringed by oleander bushes and date palms irrigated by the river which traverses the beach en route to the Libyan Sea. But one of the loveliest beaches of all is to be found in the far south west corner of Crete at Elafonisi where eager day trippers wade out to a tiny islet which beckons irresistibly from across a glorious turquoise lagoon.

Holidays in Crete island
Crete is the biggest, arguably the most beautiful and certainly one of the most fascinating of all the Greek islands. Small wonder it accounts for a quarter of the entire tourist trade of Greece. It's the birthplace of European civilisation - an island practically sinking beneath the weight of its world-famous historic sites. Even if you're not the slightest bit interested in archaeology or history the ancient treasures of Crete are guaranteed to blow your mind. But if all you crave is a gorgeous sun-drenched beach, a cheap souvlaki dinner and an all-night disco.well, you'll still come away satisfied. It's the most southerly island in Greece, bordered by the Sea of Crete to the north and the Sea of Libya to the south. You can reach it by ferry but it's a gruelling 14-hour journey from the mainland port of Piraeus. Most package holidaymakers fly into one of the two international airports - at Iraklio, serving the east of the island, and Hania in the north western corner. There's a smaller airport at Rethymno, at the centre of the northern coastline, which has domestic flights to and from Athens, Rhodes and Santorini.
Your holiday here can be whatever you want it to. There are monasteries, unspoilt mountain villages, stunning gorges and magnificent scenery enough to satisfy the hardiest hiker and most avid explorer. Despite the arrival of the package holiday industry in force on Crete island, there are still lovely isolated spots to tempt the independent traveller. Some budget backpackers brave reprisals from the local police and camp out on the island's more remote Crete beaches. Wealthier visitors wing their way here by private helicopter for some serious self-indulgence at one of the island's many deluxe hotels. Whatever category you fall into - self-sufficient "Lonely Planet" backpacker or money-to-burn "can't last a minute without my laptop" businessman - the highlight of your holiday will undoubtedly be a visit to the breathtaking Minoan Palace of Knossos. The secrets of the ancient but highly sophisticated Minoan civilisation lay hidden for nearly 3,000 years until a British archaeologist started excavating the palace site in the early 1900s. The treasures uncovered by his team together represent one of the most important archaeological discoveries the world has ever seen. Where else can you see Europe's oldest throne, still in its original place, and the en-suite bathroom of a Minoan queen who had the honour of gracing the world's first ever "flushing" toilet?
he biggest sceptic and hardest heart couldn't fail to be moved by this island where myths, legends, recorded history and fairytales have merged into one giant Disney-style world of irresistible fact and fiction.
Only on Crete is it possible to visit the reputed birthplace and hideout of Zeus, the king of the GREEK GODS. The package holiday industry has well and truly zapped Zeus in terms of being the island's dominant force these days. Modern hotels, apartment blocks and every imaginable tourist facility have sprung up along the northern coastline to the east of the capital Iraklio. But Crete's ancient history and the extraordinary beauty of the island's diverse landscape have their own special magic which will cast a spell over you despite the increasing ravages of mass-market tourism.