Ionas Hotel

If you’re going to drive for four hours to visit a town on the other side of the island let’s face it you’re more than likely not going to drive all the way back in one day ...  otherwise what would be the point of going in the first place?

So when Mum decided to come I went on tripadvisor and had a hunt for a hotel, given that it was a rather last minute plan finding a hotel was easier than I expected.  

We settled on the Ionia hotel, it seemed decent enough and was in the old town.  The plan being to park the car for the day and walk around and as Chania's old town is a pedestrianised zone there wasn't really much need for a car.

Now despite what seemed to be relatively good directions, finding the hotel took a little bit of time and a number of wrong turns. Eventually we made it, found a spot to park the car and set off on foot. The back streets of Chania can best be described as a rabbit warren full of lefts, rights and dead ends! We managed to take the left and a right a little bit earlier than we should have and ended up walking around in a circle for a while ... Eventually both of us gave in, now given that we are possibly the most stubborn creatures on the planet that is saying something. The lady on the end of the telephone was very helpful perhaps we were not the first people to have taken the wrong turn only a few metres before the hotel!

Once we checked in we were informed that we had been upgraded to the suite, which was a very nice surprise. We were escorted to our room, given an introduction to how everything worked and left to our own devices. Quite literally, the hotel is not manned twenty four seven, you are given an electronic access key and shown how the front door works and if you have any problems there is a telephone number to call where the lovely lady who I never met will try and help you out.  To be honest I rather liked the set up, open and free to get on with it as and when you liked.

The room we had had two levels the mezzanine floor was kitted out with twin beds. 

Breakfast was included in the price we paid for the room, it was a huge continental spread, jams, cheeses, cold meats, muffins, croissants, toast, eggs, cereal and much more it admittedly looked very nice. I say looked as we had managed to stuff ourselves silly the night before and the near sight of food was enough to make us feel like we were the size of the hotel itself!

There was a staff member ready to help you out with anything that you might need for your breakfast and even though her English was limited we managed with our charades and broken Greek.

All in all, the hotel was very good value for money and very conveniently located. If you didn't want to venture too far from the hotel there were two restaurants right outside the front door serving excellent food.

You can find the hotels website here along with all their contact details.