Quite often at the beginning of the school summer holidays I would drive somewhere with the kids for a couple of weeks and Stu would come and join us for a long weekend. We had driven to France and done a European road-trip a couple of times so fancied something different so decided to venture to Greece. Tom, Izzy and I were going to fly to Crete for just under 2 weeks and Stu was going to visit us for four days in the middle as he could not take any more time off work.

We had an early morning Easy Jet flight out of Gatwick which meant we arrived in Crete at lunch time which gave me plenty of time to pick up the hire car, find a supermarket for food and check into our AirBnb.

^{On our flight and views of Crete as we approached the airport.}

Collecting the hire car was an experience! I had not driven a manual car in years so it took me quite a while to even leave the car park – all with the hire company staff watching me! We made it to our AirBnb which was in a town called Stalos – just 40 minutes from Chania Airport. Our villa was beautiful – two bedrooms on the ground floor, living area and kitchen upstairs with a gorgeous pool deck.

^{Our Airbnb just outside Stalos, near Chania.}

Tom & Izzy came to the supermarket with me – a huge Lidl just 10 minutes away where we stocked up on supplies and then the rest of the evening was spent chilling out and playing in the pool.

The following morning we decided to visit the local beach. It was only a ten minute walk away but down a very steep road. We had a very quick paddle in the sea, wandered around a few of the shops where I bought myself a beach bag and then headed home. Climbing the hill back to the villa was hard work – especially in all the heat.

^{Making our way to the beach}

It was then another afternoon and evening playing in our pool as Stu was joining us the next day.

Stu’s flight was arriving early afternoon so we decided to visit the beach again while waiting to pick him up – this time with our swimming things! Tom & Izzy spent ages in the sea – it was so still – whilst I tracked his flight on flight radar.

When he was one hour out we headed home, got in the car and drove to the airport to collect him. It was so lovely giving Stu the car to drive as I had been really struggling putting it into first gear – he pointed out I was pressing the wrong button and it was going into reverse – that explained a lot! Unfortunately Stu had to work for the rest of the day (and tomorrow) so we chilled for the afternoon and planned our outing (so Stu had peace) to Heraklion the following day.