Hi everyone – I discovered Plakias by accident about six or seven years ago when I was travelling on my own with a flight only deal to Heraklion. The plan was to travel around the island and stay at three or four different places over the course of a fortnight. I landed in the small hours and my first idea was to get the bus to Rethymnon and stay there for a day or two to get my bearings but, arriving at around 7am, it just all looked a bit grim so I decided to go somewhere else. The next bus to anywhere my guide book said was promising was to Plakias. So I took that bus and turned up on main drag with just my suitcase and no idea where I really was. It was about 9am by then and most of the bars/cafes were still shut, there was a howling gale, I hadn’t slept for 24 hours, was unshaven and unwashed and really didn’t feel in the best of moods.
Anyway, I wandered around for a bit and then a little old lady came out from one of the supermarkets and asked if I was looking for a room. I said I was and she said ‘come this way’. She took me up a very steep hill, trying to help me with my bags to start with but it was stinking hot so I eventually let her off the hook and carried them myself. We reached a little apartment block and she said this is it, would I like an upstairs room or downstairs – by this point I really needed to sleep and would have taken anything but she showed me an upstairs room, clean and comfy and with a magnificent view over the bay at what worked out to about £10 a night. I took it, naturally, saying I’d spend about three nights there.
Once I’d cleaned up and had a snooze, however, I started to like the place. By the second day the wind had died off a bit and I started to find the various beaches, bars, restaurants and so forth. Needless to say, I ended up staying the whole fortnight and it was just about the best holiday I have ever had.
I met some great people. There was a really nice couple from Prague with a small lad of four who I spent several evenings with. There was an eccentric hippy chap who tried to persuade everybody to go to Damnoni all the time. There was a group of girls who had just graduated from Bristol University who I got to know after one of their number lost her footing in the sea under a freak wave and clattered into me, leaving us both in a naked tangle on the edge of the water – an embarrassing/enjoyable and especially funny way of meeting someone. And then there was the young Greek lad who was on his way to becoming a priest, who was visiting his aunt and uncle just before going to spend a year in a monastery.
The weather, food, scenery and atmosphere made it an extremely enjoyable fortnight, capped off on the bus journey back to Rethymnon, when a dirty great big eagle got upset by the noise of the bus and took to the skies right by my window!
Anyway, this is an extremely long-winded way of asking for some information. Circumstances dictate that I am going to have another fortnight away on my own in the first couple of weeks of September and I was thinking of doing the same thing again. However, while I’m not really on a tight budget, looking on the net you seem to be able to get some pretty good deals to some pretty good places for about £300-350. While I’d be happy to pay a bit more to go back to Plakias, given the prices I’d be hard pushed to justify spending more than about £500 on flights and accommodation (both in my eyes and those of my bank manager) so I was wondering if anyone can tell me how much I would expect to spend on a basic room in Plakias these days. I’m sure it’s a lot more than than the £10 a night I had before but I’m not looking for luxury – roof, bed, shower, toilet is all I ask. Any advice greatly appreciated.