Crete – car hire and other recommendations

Going to Crete soon, first time there! Going to be a long day of travelling, and arriving quite late into Heraklion, with an hours drive still to do.

Assuming in that scenario it’s best to rent from one of the in terminal companies?

We’re staying in the south, near Matala – any recommendations?

been going to different areas of crete twice a year for a good while now so know the island well (its our happy place :-) )  and no, its not best to rent from one of the terminal companies, its always best to use the local firms in crete and book beforehand.  we always use autorentals, hes now a friend of ours and his policies are zero CDW excess.

painless at the airport, just collect your baggage and one of them will meet you in arrivals with your name on a card.  bit of paperwork, hand the cash over and youre away in a few minutes, none of that queuing in the airport lark.

theres also annacars, autoclub and thebest cars, altho tbh you wont go far wrong with any of the companies recommended in this tripadvisor thread.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g189413-i424-k14056996-Recommended_car_rental_companies-Crete.html

its always recommended to get a few quotes, altho annacars always come out dearest when we check.  some are cheaper but dont do zero excess, altho you may prefer to do that alongside a £40 annual policy from over here, so any dings you pay up, but then claim back when youre home.

pm me with your details if you want to use autorentals and i can message him and get a direct quote for you?  but honestly, you just dont need to worry at all about car hire over there if you use the locals.

We’re staying in the south, near Matala – any recommendations?

do you mean recommendations to stay, or is that already sorted?  if not, we stayed in a lovely villa in a complex in the village of pitsidia just outside matala.  depends if you want to be ‘in the action’ in matala itself, or just outside of it.  and yes, ill have a few recommendations for beaches/tavernas etc if thats what you mean.  all depends on what you want, sandy beaches?  historical sites?  quaint local villages?  or will you just want one place to stay and rarely venture from it?

hope that helps

Thanks so much @sadexpunk!

We have a villa booked in Kamilari. It has a pool and a BBQ and the weather looks like it will still be good. Am looking for things to do with an easily bored 10 year old girl, but also need to recharge batteries, so easy excursions and nice tavernas/beaches/tavernas on beaches would be good.

We’ll have to spend a day at the waterpark, but otherwise from what I can see there are enough good things to keep us occupied in the south that don’t mean loads of driving.

@thebunk At work now so will catch up with this later, but I assume you know about the caves at matala beach? I’m sure she’d enjoy having a scrabble about in those…..

I know very little as it’s all been a bit last minute! Caves sound great, and I saw something about a gorge…

Yes the caves were carved into the rocks to the right of the beach and the hippies lived in them in the 60s and 70s. Joni Mitchell famously lived there for a while and wrote some of her songs there, and I think Bob Dylan also spent time there.

It’s still got that hippie vibe, plenty of VW bugs with flowers painted on them, graffiti/artwork, it’s an interesting visit.

the mountains are worth driving through just for the scenery. Cave of Zeus up on the plateau is also worth the drive, make sure you go to the mini theme park thing with tableau of the Greek gods, we found it hilarious.

We hired in resort, company called Malia I think. No issues, in fact one of the most professional and hire experiences I’ve had.

We go a week today, but staying near Chania in the north.

Haven’t decided whether to get a car or not yet

@TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsSTR Ooh love the chania area. Whereabouts you staying?

@sadexpunk

https://www.atlanticahotels.com/hotels-in-crete/atlantica-kalliston-resort

I reckon I would have been gutted not to be able to get around.  We were staying in land a bit anyway so needed to be able to get to the beach.

Also visited a couple of gorges.  One called ‘big waterfall’ (Kourtaliotiko) on google maps which required a short swim in a gorge to the waterfall.  Think it was too hot for Samaria gorge.

driving over there in the dark was scary.

Hire cars at chania were a lottery.  picture was of a newish 4 door small hatch but ended up with a 10 year old micra.  A/C worked and tbh, it meant nobody was going over it with a fine tooth comb looking for scratches.

Take all the insurance!  I have travelled around the world and seem some questionable driving, Crete was by far the most terrifying.  It is standard practice to drive half in the hard shoulder on a single carriageway road – most of the highways are A roads, then both directions use the space in the middle as an overtaking lane, sometimes at the same time.  Also the parking buildings are all designed for tiny cars.

https://www.atlanticahotels.com/hotels-in-crete/atlantica-kalliston-resort

@TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsSTR wow spooky!!  we walked along that beach just a couple of weeks ago and looked at those rooms, they look lovely.  we decided that we’d love to stay two or three days in that area in future as there are a few lovely beaches nearby too.  my wife got bit by a fish on the one right next to it (iguana beach), drew blood it did!  you sometimes do get a few nippy fish from time to time but theyre usually only little nibbles on hard skin, bit like you used to pay good money for :D  im sure youll find out for yourself but thats a really lovely beach.  when we were there it was waves in the main part with a couple of surfers, but really calm over on the far side by the rocks, and soooooo shallow!  totally different.  easy bus ride into chania too (i wouldnt try to drive in, parkings a nightmare). although id always recommend getting a car for seeing the local area, its lovely.  enjoy!

Hire cars at chania were a lottery.  picture was of a newish 4 door small hatch but ended up with a 10 year old micra.  A/C worked and tbh, it meant nobody was going over it with a fine tooth comb looking for scratches.

you wont get that if you go with one of the companies recommended in the post above ^^^

Take all the insurance!  I have travelled around the world and seem some questionable driving, Crete was by far the most terrifying.  It is standard practice to drive half in the hard shoulder on a single carriageway road – most of the highways are A roads, then both directions use the space in the middle as an overtaking lane, sometimes at the same time.

see to me i prefer driving there to over here!!  that driving on the hard shoulder just seems like common sense, it just lets all the fast drivers past so theyre not up your @rse. never had any scary moments at all in contrast to here.  and inland its pretty twisty and windy so theres none of that malarkey there :-)

F

It is standard practice to drive half in the hard shoulder on a single carriageway road – most of the highways are A roads, then both directions use the space in the middle as an overtaking lane, sometimes at the same time.

That’s good intel to have ahead of time, thanks @hels! Could be fun in the dark…

Could be fun in the dark…

@thebunk its really no problem at all unless you go on some of the twisty mountain roads at night.  youll only be on the ‘motorway’ for a short distance before dropping onto the road down to matala which is a decent wide road.  from memory there are a few wider sections with ‘hard shoulder lines’ wide enough to move into, but we just drive as per normal unless there are cars behind in which case we move over.  its just common practice/courtesy to straddle the line when wide enough.

i suppose tiredness maybe an issue if its a late flight, but its only an hours drive on decent roads.

Got back last weekend and loved Crete! Went with Autorentals and they were great – Met us on arrival, 5-10 min walk from the terminal and lovely and straightforward to deal with (right down to giving us a small bottle of olive oil as a gift).

Driving was fine, though was glad that I knew about the hard shoulder thing as they do have their fair share of mad drivers, good to just be able to get out of their way. Every country I’ve been to in Asia + Italy are higher up my league table of crazy places to drive though. It’s like Wiltshire, with all the farmers sons in hot hatches, but with fewer potholes.

Crete itself was a beautiful surprise. We really just wanted some sun, nice beaches and a relaxing holiday – we got those, but it’s also such a lovely place to be generally – there is fruit growing everywhere so it’s not so arid, like Portugal can be. We met so many kind people too. Would say that Heraklion and the surrounds were way more built up and busy than we expected, so pleased we didn’t stay near there. The south was far quieter, Kamilari was a lovely sleepy village during the day, though with loads of cafes and tavernas – we were just outside it so not sure if it woke up later as we didn’t go in the evening. Matala beach was lovely, quite epic with the caves overlooking it, and we loved swimming with all the fish, and some curious squid too!

Last few days we had 29 degrees weather, and driving home through Aviemore on Sunday night the temps got down to -1c! Quite a shock! Would definitely go back.

ahhh, always love a happy crete story :-)

Would say that Heraklion and the surrounds were way more built up and busy than we expected, so pleased we didn’t stay near there.

yeah not for us either.  can remember the first time we went to crete and the transfer bus passing through hersonissos main road and thinking wow, this is like blackpool on acid, please keep going!  luckily it did. crete’s such a massive island tho you can keep coming for years and still not have seen it all, so many beautiful areas.

and it does make you feel happier knowing that you can trust the car rental companies there so thats one less thing to worry about.

wonder how @TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsSTR got on?

you may just have the crete bug now like us.  already booked another two holidays there next year :-)