With a nearly two-week school break in early April due to Easter, the timing was right to make our first visit to Greece! 🇬🇷
First stop was the eastern coast of Crete, flying into Heraklion and staying about an hour’s drive east in the coastal town of Elounda. Thanks to helpful assistance from a family travel planner @family_tc for this trip, we chose to stay at @domesofelounda which ended up being the highlight of our time on the island. Between the spacious family suite set-up, jacuzzi on the balcony, excellent food, and incredible staff and activities at the Kids Club, we LOVED this property. Though both Dave and I thought we’d be touring antiquities and archaeological sites every day around this side of Crete, we decided to call an audible and just enjoy more time at the resort, since we were fortunate to catch five days of delightful weather there.
With Jacob content at the Kids Club, we went hiking in Elounda and also visited Knossos, a site that’s described as the oldest European city (7000 BC-ish) but was described by Dave as “not much more than a pile of rocks now.” All kidding aside, the buildings, grounds, and artifacts which have been excavated at Knossos (and somewhat controversially, partially restored) are quite impressive and well worth a morning of exploration.
We ended our stay with a brief boat ride excursion to a nearby island, Spinalonga, which was a fort for 400 years and then converted into a leper colony in the early 1900s. As usual, Jacob loved the boat ride but wondered why Spinalonga had so many steps and no place to get ice cream.
