Your Odyssey Inspired Holiday Destination is Extra Deluxe

Nolan’s IMAX 70mm mind and time bending behemoth, The Odyssey has landed and inspired people to start rereading those Greek classics. But before we start getting all hero worshiping about Odysseus, the Matt Damon rendition or otherwise maybe we should remember that he is a man who kept finding excellent reasons to stay somewhere else for ten years. A sorceress here, a nymph there, a lot of very good wine, and a weak sense of urgency about his wife weaving at home.

If you are feeling all inspired for your own Greek Odyssey we might recommend the Acro Suites, perched on a headland above Mononaftis Bay on Crete’s northern coast. It is 29 kilometres from Heraklion airport which is itself the far end of roughly a day and a half of travel from Auckland. Odysseus had a black ship and a following wind. You have a Doha or Dubai connection, an Athens leg, a short hop across to Heraklion, and probably someone in front of you who reclines during the meal service. Oh, it is worth the trip though.

Calypso kept Odysseus seven years in a cave and, according to Homer, he spent most of it sitting on the beach crying at the horizon. Having now seen a Cave Suite at Acro, we can only assume that Calypso’s cave did not have a private infinity pool. The forty-seven suites and villas are built into the cliff rather than on it. Stone and poured concrete follow the contours of the headland, with the odd ancient olive tree and rock outcrop left exactly where it was found. The Cave Suites burrow inward and then open, onto the sea, while the Wave and Gaia Suites lean out over it.

The whole thing only runs to two floors, which is part of the charm. SLH describes the effect as a layered palace nodding to the island’s Minoan past. Out past the terrace sits Dia, the low uninhabited island said to have been a giant lizard petrified by Zeus. It’s also been attributed as the place Theseus escaped to after killing the Minotaur.

The lotus eaters gave Odysseus’s men a fruit so pleasant they lost all interest in going home, and he had to drag them back to the ships in tears. Crete has since refined the technique and added some other temptations. The Bath House is a Byzantine hammam in polished stone and low light, with heated pool, sauna, acupuncture, shiatsu and Thai massage.

The food is also something you will find hard leaving behind. Cremnos handles the Cretan theme with a modern twist. Umi does a Japanese-Peruvian fusion which probably would have been quite alien to Bronze Age ship crew. Eleonas meanwhile features communal tables hidden in an olive grove at the centre of the resort, cooked over an open hearth. There is a pool bar for the in-between hours. Everything leans on the Cretan diet, routinely rated among the healthiest on earth, and on what the island calls liquid gold, olive oil.

Should you be tempted to actually leave the property, Agia Pelagia is five minutes down the hill with golden sand and tranquil coves. Knossos and the labyrinth are about forty minutes away. The Samaria Gorge is spectacular and also 130 kilometres west.

In reviews people tend to mention the staff before they mention the view, which given the view is quite a statement. Acro is adults only, so nobody’s Telemachus is turning up to bother you. It closes November through March, which is the only reason anyone ever leaves, and which the ancients would have recognised as the end of the sailing season.