Exploring Greece / Aquila Elounda Village

Aquila Elounda Village Hotel

I’ve been meaning to post these pictures for quite a while now and I think the reason I haven’t is because I knew once I started flicking through them all, I would end up with a serious case of holiday blue’s…. and I’m not wrong!

With the economic crisis happening in Greece just weeks before we were due to depart on our annual jolly, we were slightly apprehensive about going. However, my thoughts were that if all tourists decided to cancel their holidays to Greece, the country would never get out of difficulty, so being the do-gooders that we are, we risked it and went (hardly a risk though).

We stayed at the Aquila Elounda Village Hotel in Crete, which was truly stunning. I have always wanted to stay somewhere with an infinity pool and this hotel managed to tick this off my list. We chose to stay all-inclusive, (mainly for the unlimited cocktails), but we were certainly not short of choice. There are two main restaurants serving food from an al la carte menu. I sometimes find that all-inclusive hotel restaurants aren’t generally up to the same standard as restaurants you would pay to go to at home, but this definitely was not the case here. There is also a buffet style restaurant, which was good at breakfast but average at lunch and dinner. I think if you stay half board this is the only option for your evening meal, in my opinion I think it would be worth paying the extra and going all-inclusive. Finally, the poolside bar was also fairly good. It has a chilled out atmosphere, often playing live music during lunchtime and is the perfect place to get out of the sun during the hottest part of the day.

The grounds of the hotel were lovely albeit quite steep, so for anybody who has difficulty walking, this might not be the best place to go. There are 3 swimming pools set on different levels, which eventually lead down to the beach area where you can swim in the sea and do some water sports if you fancy getting active. Obviously, the only vigorous activities I engaged in was walking down a few flights of stairs to pick up some pina coladas from the pool bar!

I hope this is useful information if you are tempted to book to go next summer. I would definitely return for a relaxing week in the sun and I think the pictures speak for themselves as you can see how beautiful the island of Crete really is.

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Elounda Village

Elounda Village is a short taxi ride away (10 mins max) which we visited one evening just to get out of the resort. It is a really small seaside town with a gorgeous little fishing harbour and a number of nice restaurants and bars. Not as touristy as nearby Aghios Nikolaus but with enough options to keep you coming back for a good few nights.

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The dress

And finally, to finish off here are a few snaps of the most beautiful dress I own. Any avid fashion follower will instantly recognise this dress as an excellent copy ahem, I mean ‘design influenced’ dress by Chloe. Unfortunately, I’m not lucky enough to be able to afford Chloe pieces (yet!), so thankfully we have the great British high street saving the day in the form of H&M. As soon as I saw this dress I knew I had to have it. I was out shopping with work when I saw it and my boss told me I should go and try it on… who am I to argue with the boss!? I just wished I lived in a warmer climate so I could wear it more often so it isn’t catching dust hanging up in my wardrobe.