Elounda holidays

The toughest thing about an Elounda holiday is dragging yourself away from your pampered playground, but when you do, you'll find lots to amuse you, from quayside restaurants beside quaint fishing harbours to boat trips to historic island fortresses.

Outside the resort, day trips can take you high up into the mountains, to spooky caverns where bronze-age people worshipped ancient gods or deep into secret valleys hidden by treeless peaks.

Lovers of hidden histories and lost civilisations don't have go far to unpeel the multiple layers of Crete's deep past, either. There’s 4,000-year-old relics of one of Europe's oldest civilisations in ancient Knossos, formidable Venetian and Ottoman strongholds and the fabulous treasures of Heraklion's Archaeological Museum just a hop away from your base in Elounda.

For a bit of retail therapy, you'll find markets and shopping streets where you can browse for hand-made leather wear and accessories, artisan jewellery and ceramics, and herbs gathered from mountain meadows high above Elounda's sunny beaches.

Summer is high season, with guaranteed sunshine and almost no rain from June until the end of September, when daytime temperatures can jump beyond 30C.

You'll also find affordable holidays in autumn, before the season winds down at the end of October. There's still plenty of warm sunshine at this time of year, with average highs of 16C – and the sea is even warmer than in early summer.

Elounda isn't all about idling by the pool. The calm Gulf of Mirabello is perfect for water-skiing, windsurfing and all sorts of inflatable rides.

Rent a skipper-yourself motorboat – you don't need a licence if it’s under 30HP. Or if you prefer to sit back and let someone else steer, you can hire a boat and skipper for a morning's fishing or a day-long swimming and snorkelling trip.

Spinalonga

The boat ride to Spinalonga is the top excursion from Elounda. Just offshore, Venetian and Turkish fortifications dominate this tiny island in the Gulf of Mirabello, where people living with leprosy were quarantined until less than a century ago.

Agios Nikolaos

A 20-minute drive from Elounda, Agios Nikolaos is a blissfully scenic small harbour town. It was one of the first holiday spots on Crete, but tourism has moved on and today, 'Ag Nik' is pleasantly laid-back, with attractive shopping streets and a plethora of quayside tavernas around its serene inner lagoon.

Ancient Knossos and Heraklion

With a rental car, you can combine a morning at ancient Knossos, with its colourfully restored palace columns and wall paintings of dolphins and bull-dancers, and a visit to nearby Heraklion's lively street markets and Archaeological Museum, a treasury of incredibly ancient relics.

Both are around 75 minutes' drive from Elounda.

Lasithi Plateau

Tzermiado is the gateway to the hidden world of Lasithi, a high plateau that is hemmed in by a ring of treeless grey mountains like a lost kingdom from a fantasy movie.

Only a few of its famous windmills are left, but the one-hour drive through the mountains from Elounda is spectacular. Underground, the Dikteon Cave is an eerie grotto of spooky rock formations.