First, the Villa was beautifully set with absolutely stunning views over the bay of Souda to the north and to the White Mountains to the south-west. The kitchen was very well-appointed with the best electric Cooke I’ve ever used. The pool is a wonderful asset. The house is convenient for shops, restaurants and beach. Maria and Giannis are lovely people, very welcoming, and obliging, with Maria, especially enjoying a good laugh in Broken English and broken Greek.
But, the house is not without its shortcomings and irritations. Two of the bedrooms are too small for the furniture, so we couldn’t open the windows and the cupboards fully and the doors hit the beds when opened. We tried moving the beds together to give more space, but the lamp cable then didn’t reach the socket. A longer cable would solve the problem. Given the large site and the huge upstairs balcony, I am bewildered as to why the bedrooms couldn’t have been made a touch bigger. The beds themselves are like concrete, and even our builder friend wasn’t strong enough to tuck the sheets in. Moreover, the sheets on the double bed were too small to cover two average/small people, so we slept in separate rooms. It is not hygienic to have sheets spread directly on top of mattresses that serve sequences of guests. They should use mattress covers that can be laundered between guests. The downstairs shower is microscopic even by Greek standards. It is impossible to stand inside the tiled enclosure to shower because the huge tap protrudes halfway across it. A smaller, higher tap and a larger enclosure would help. We had to turn off the water pump at night because it kicked in every ten minutes with loud whirring noises, waking us up. The big water tank in the garden developed a bad vibration which sounded like a pneumatic drill outside the bedroom windows. Giannis quickly turned up to effect a Greekishly improvised mend with string and plastic bags.
Finally, by far the worst shortcoming was the smell from the drains in both bathrooms. We tried everything. Covering the holes with a plastic mat, pouring down dishwasher fluid, putting upturned bowls over them, but the smell was hideous enough to send us running out of the living room every time the shower room door was opened. It made the downstairs rooms almost uninhabitable and even woke me up in my bed upstairs one morning. It must be fixed, or guests won’t return. It’s a real shame; it’s a lovely place.
