Whether you have noticed or not, I have been away from Ciao for 2 weeks, and I’ve been on holiday. It was a bit of a last minute thing. I’ve just split up with my long term boyfriend and I needed to escape for a while, so we booked a fortnight of fun in the sun in Malia. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it when I went, but I enjoyed it so much!
~*~IN GENERAL~*~ Crete is approximately 100 miles away from the mainland of Greece. Create is about 150 miles across and 50 miles wide, and is the largest Greek island. The Euro is now used in Greece instead of the Drachma, and therefore prices have increased quite dramatically. Quite obviously the main language spoke in Greece, is Greek, although the shopkeepers and suchlike are usually quite good at giving English a go. The land in Crete is pretty mountainous, and from most places you are able to see the pretty picturesque mountains and hills. The capital of Crete is Heraklion (which is also where the main airport if situated). Crete is full of tourists, but there further you get away from the main roads and busy towns, the more traditional it all seems. You can still see the Greeks tending to crops and working in the fields in certain areas. The northern side of Crete caters for more tourists, where the southern side is much more quiet and provides a better view of traditional Greek life.
~*~MALIA~*~ Malia is often compared to resorts like Ibiza, Falaraki and Ayia Napa. It has an extremely busy nightlife, and isn’t for the faint hearted. Malia is one of Crete’s busiest tourist resorts, although it’s not really somewhere I would suggest for couples of families with children. Malia has many things to do during the day and many more to do at night!!
~*~TRAVELLING~*~ We flew with Golden sun from Newcastle airport at 6:35pm, and we arrived at Heraklion airport at 12:30am their time. There is a two hour increase in time over in Greece than in the UK. Our flight was fine, no problems at all, there was no delays and everything ran smoothly. We collected our baggage at the other end, and boarded the coach which was going to drop us at our apartment. It was dark, as it was about 3am in the morning when we got there. Our apartment was down quite a dark quite road so we decided not to venture out until the following day, so we unpacked our cases and had an early night!
~*~ACCOMODATION~*~ The apartments we stayed in were called Michalis Apartments. They were situated about 10 minutes walk away from Beach Road (where all the pubs and clubs are). Golden Sun had never used Michalis Apartments before, so they couldn’t tell us anything about it. We didn’t have a pool, but there was a lovely pool just over the road and the Yannis Manos Apartments which we used. The block of apartments we stayed in had 8 individual apartments all built into one block. The apartments didn’t have a reception and there was no one to greet us when we arrived, although it was 3am. The owners of the hotel spoke no English, we found the man quite intrusive and irritating. On the first few nights back, he waited up on his balcony until we got in. We were warned on the first day that there was a 50euro charge if we brought anyone back. One day we were actually sitting in the apartment with two blokes, we were actually eating pasta and playing cards ( and that’s the truth) and the man barged into the apartment, shouting “no sex, no sex!” It was so embarrassing, wouldn’t have been as bad if there was anything funny going on, but there wasn’t!! The apartments were clean but very basic, we had our sheets changed once, and new towels once, but in the second week the cleaner pinched the towels and never gave us any more back. During our stay the smoke alarm fell off the wall, and we explained to the man (well tried to) and we were told he would fix it, it was still broken when we left! It was all quite strange and our little toilet bin wasn’t changed by the cleaners, so we did it ourselves. We had a fridge, two single beds, with about a foot between them, a cupboard with some drawers underneath, some cupboards, 2 of each type of cutlery and plates etc. We had a little hot plate type thing to cook on and a kettle. Everything was quite clean. We didn’t have air conditioning, but the room was cool, as the sun was at the back of the apartments, we also had two large windows that let a nice cool breeze through. If I were to go back to Malia I would stay closer to the strip (Beach Road) there are many apartments closer to the centre of town, which are clean, and have their own pools, although they are much noisier. The Galini, Philixenia II, The Fanorakis are some that I would suggest. There are also much posher hotels and apartments in the Old Town of Malia. It cost us £310 SC for 2 weeks holiday in Malia, which wasn’t particularly cheap, as we met people who were staying right in the centre, and they had only paid £250 and they had their own pool.
~*~DURING THE DAY~*~ Whilst we were there, we didn’t do a huge amount during the day. We slept in quite late, believe me you will need it, if you roll in at 7am like we did! After a nice lie in, the best thing to do is sunbathe, have a wander to find where you prefer. Most hotels let anyone into the pools during the day, do just have a wander and see where you fancy. There are many water sports and suchlike that you can try on the beach. There’s jet skis, and the banana boat which you can try for a fee. There are plenty of pools bars that you can have a look round, most pools have their own bars and you can also order food. If you fancy the beach, there’s the same down there. There is plenty to keep you entertained.
If you fancy something a bit more adventurous then you could try one of the excursions that are offered in many little shops all over Malia. There are often special offers on, so if you pay for 2 you can get a 3rd free. We only went on one excursion, and that was to the water park. To be honest I didn’t think it was worth the money. You can also hire scooters, quads and cars out for the day, the week, or the fortnight. The more days you hire them for, the cheaper it is. We hired two quads out for 4 days and it cost us 100euros each. The petrol is quite cheap and you don’t really use that much. Be warned though! BE CAREFUL! It’s pretty dangerous driving in Malia, everyone drives quite erratically. We didn’t have to show any driving licences or passports when we hired out our scooters. One piece of advice I will give you, is make sure you get fully comprehensive insurance when you hire anything, there is often quite a difference in the prices, but if you don’t the Greeks have been known to follow you back to your apartments and damage your scooters, and then you’re liable to pay for the entire scooter, which can cost you a fortune. We were warned about this by some of the workers. Getting out and about is much easier on a scooter or a quad, we certainly missed ours when we gave them back. If you’re a bit apprehensive about driving in a foreign country you can always stick with the guided tours and excursions that are really easy to book.
~*~EATING OUT~*~ There are many different places to eat out in Malia. Most restaurants offer English and Greek food. There are plenty of traditional style pubs with typical pub food, and a couple of smart little restaurants.
The Red Lion – It’s a typical English style pub, with football on in the background during the day. It offers breakfasts all day long and ‘normal’ food all day. Like chips and burgers. The prices are quite good, and you will pay about 3,50 euros from a large English breakfast.
Brassiere – This is a gorgeous restaurant situated over the road from Macdonald’s on the crossroads at Beach Road. It offers a wide range of foods. If you go, you have to try the mussels for a starter, they’re fantastic, the best I have ever tasted! It cost us about 32 euros for a 2 course meal and a drink each.
Macdonald’s! – Malia has a 24 hour Macdonald’s it’s always busy and get extremely packed when the pubs and clubs are shutting. It cost 4 euros for 2 cheeseburgers and a bag of fries. The chicken burgers in Malia are round, not oval shaped!!
We also went to a lovely Indian at the bottom of Beach Road, but I can’t remember the name, it was very nice but expensive. There’s also a few nice little restaurants along the road into the Old town, towards Stallis, thee’s a great one that does cheap breakfast, that are gorgeous! The people are lovely, and there’s a gorgeous English bloke works behind the bar! There are plenty of different places in Malia that suit anyone, lots of different things to try.
There’s a 24 hour bar at the bottom of the road where we were staying, it’s called Tilly’s and they’re so nice and friendly in there. They also serve lovely breakfasts and stuffed French toast!! – Yummy!
There are plenty of nice places to eat in Malia, as you’re walking down the streets you will be dragged in by the people promoting the restaurants, don’t feel pressurised, if you don’t fancy it, don’t go in!
~*~THE NIGHTLIFE~*~ This is one of the main reasons we chose to go to Malia for a holiday. We had heard about how crazy it is and decided we quite fancied giving it a go. The night life is great. Malia isn’t the place to go if you don’t like a drink though. It’s best to go out about 10:30pm, any earlier and there’s still tourists roaming the streets and not everywhere is open. We started our nights in a smallish 24 hour bar called Tilly’s which was on the corner from our apartments. It is supposed to be the cheapest bar in Malia.It is also advisable to have a few drinks in your apartment before you go out. After Tilly’s we walked along the road to the strip (Beach Road). Upon reaching the first bar, you see the PR people trying to drag you in. They will try anything, sweet talking you, lifting you up, offering more free drinks. There’s a great little bar just before you turn onto Beach Road called Downtown. It’s opposite the Galini apartments. It’s buy one get one free all night. We spent loads of time in here, and got on really well with the people, the nicer you are the more free drinks you get. You will also be given free shots in most pubs and clubs, although they’re quite weak.
Moving up around the corner, there’s Roadhouse. You can sit down and chill outside for a bit and watch everyone go past, moving on from there, there’s Babylon. When someone tries to drag you into a pub, make sure you don’t go in straight away, tell them you’re not sure. They will offer you more free drinks to get you in. One pub we went in, we got buy one get one free on spirits and a mixer, and we were also given 4 free shots each and a free cocktail! It’s worth hanging about a bit outside and seeing what you can get. Cloud 9 offers bottles of champagne if you’re in a large group, although it tastes quite disgusting!
There’s Corkers which is also somewhere good to pop in. They give you lots of stickers, many times I woke up covered in them!
Premier bar is a god place to head to after you’ve had a few as the karoke is on in the corner, you just make your request and wait about until they play it, some nights it’s extremely busy and other nights it can be quite empty. Cheeky ½ is somewhere else that gets pretty busy and you can get quite squashed, but I like that sort of thing!
Exodus is somewhere I ended up quite a bit, being dragged around, talking the dodgy geezer, but that’s another story. The toilets in Exodus were always a bit minging, even early on in the night. Galaxy Bar is right at the top of the strip, just before you get onto the Main Road. We met Dillon from there, and he was lovely, came for a drink with us in Downtown, where he met his roommate Dangerous Dave (don’t ask).
We headed for the Newcastle Bar at the start of the holiday and visited it most nights. Most Geordies and North Easterners head there, so we met quite a few people from back home. Try their Orgasam Cocktails, they’re truly amazing!!
There’s loads of bars but the above are a few of my favourites. After the pubs there’s a good few clubs to try. There’s Apollo, but I found there to be quite a few sleazy Greek men in here, but it was still a good laugh. Club UK is just so English. It’s all hardcore ravers and stuff. It has foam squirting out most nights, and lots of smoke. It reminded me of the clubs at home.
When it starts to get later, you can head off to Spice, we went with a lot of the workers and ended up paying 1euro for any sort of drink, which was great! Then there’s Las Vegas at the bottom, it’s where most of the workers head after finishing for the night. The pubs and clubs in Malia are open until 4am during the week and 6am at a weekend. There are also a couple of 24 hour bars, Petrino’s was the best. We were never home before 7am the next morning during our stay!
~*~AFTER HOURS~*~ After the pubs have shut, a lot of people head down to the beach. You see so many people skinny dipping, and just crashed out on the sun loungers. You’re also quite likely to see a lot of people having sex. The majority of the hotels and apartments in Malia don’t allow guests back at night, so you are quite likely to see people at it everywhere you turn. The Philixenia II apartments have cameras up! The Galini apartments have a security guard and our apartments had the watchful eye of the Greek owner until we got in at night.
To be honest though, I wouldn’t say Malia is the place to go if you’re looking to find the love of your life, most young people go there to see how many people they can sleep with. Malia is wild and fun, but not the place to go if you’re shy.
~*~COMMENTS ABOUT MALIA~*~ Overall I had a great time in Malia. Prices weren’t too bad, they were a lot like home. One drink I missed was, Taboo! Nowhere in Malia sells Taboo! The free drinks are an added bonus, but they’re not particularly strong, the alcohol is quite weak, and I think a lot of it is watered down. The music in Malia is pretty much like the clubs at home.
One thing that we didn’t find quite bad, was the Greek men. We were followed by Greek men on more than one occasion, and when you’re walking down a quiet road it can be quite daunting. In the period of 2 weeks we also saw 3 Greek men masturbating in public, one was doing it in the van as he followed us down the road. We were also approached by Greeks on scooters and in cars. Towards the end of our holiday we had a bit of a problem in our apartment. I walked into the apartment alone (you had to walk up a flight of stairs to get to ours) and there was someone lurking in the bushes beside the stairs to our apartment. I was really scared so I locked myself in until I heard people downstairs and then banged on the floor until someone came up and had a look round for me. It was quite scary knowing there was someone so close like that. There were people about quite a bit like that, the often set the dogs off barking, we were also staying next to someone’s home. They were often sat outside cleaning guns on the table.
If I go back to Malia then I would probably stay smack bang in the centre of the town. I don’t think I would like to stay that far out again.
Overall I really enjoyed Malia, and I would love to go back at some point. It’s crazy and a great place to go. There are also loads of jobs available if you get out there and feel like staying, I was so tempted to do that!
If you go to Malia make sure you take plenty of money, there a loads of little shops that you can buy gifts and cheap bits of tack that you can waste your money on. I would also suggest you taking your bank card or credit card, there are plenty of cash points in Greece and it can be a lifesaver.
Anyway, hope that gives you a bit of information about Malia.
Thanks for the Read
Cat x
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