Villa Staride is in a beautiful, peaceful, quiet rural setting with stunning views of the sea and mountains. You definitely need a car as the closest village with amenities, Agii Pantes, is a ten minute drive. Here you will find a pharmacy, garage, café and supermarket, which is very well stocked. From the outside we thought it looked small but looks are deceiving and we managed to get everything we needed, even soya milk!
The villa is furnished to a high standard, was immaculately clean and has very comfortable beds. The owner gave us such a warm welcome and had kindly stocked the fridge for our breakfast. There’s also a wine rack and wine list! As we were there in May we asked for the pool to be heated, which we needed. You pay a daily rate for this. The view from the pool is breath-taking. There’s lots of space outside to sunbath and plenty of shaded areas. Pool towels are provided. The kitchen had everything we needed as we ate in most days. Very good Wi-Fi. Air-con throughout. The villa and pool were cleaning during our week stay. The only improvement to think of is that the bathrooms don’t reflect the modern interior design of the rest of the villa.
There are a few houses within view however they appeared to be empty. We didn’t feel overlooked at all. It is next to the road, but you only get a couple of cars going past per hour. We only observed a family living on the opposite side of the road. The main sounds were from nature!
Georgioupoli by the coast is the closest town, a 20 minute drive, and has an array of shops, bars and restaurants. Chania is a 40 minute drive and Rethimno around 45 minutes, both are definitely worth visiting. Chania has a stunning old harbour. We loved the shops in Rethimno. We would recommend the Cretan Corner, family run restaurant which you’ll find easily on Google maps and is around a 25 minute drive. Absolutely incredible mountain views, excellent customer service and delicious traditional Cretan food.
Communication with Aegean Villas, who manage the villa, could have been faster prior to our stay as it could take a few days to receive a reply. On a few occasions we needed to send a prompting message to get a reply. However, their communication via WhatsApp was excellent when we arrived and during our stay. We received replies to our messages very promptly.
