Travel – Rethymno, Crete, Greece – 2026

We revisited Rethymno, Crete, at the beginning of the month staying once again in the Aquila Porto Rethymnon Hotel. This was a half board deal, booked through TUI, flying from Bristol UK into Heraklion, Crete. The flight and airport were pretty uneventful although the transfer from the airport to the hotel took 90 minutes in a pretty uncomfortable, packed minibus. Still, we were on holiday and didn’t care.

We arrived just before midnight so it was pretty much straight to bed once we were shown to our room. In fairness to the hotel, they gave us a free midday meal voucher to make up for missing that days evening meal, which was a nice touch and really appreciated.

The view from our hotel which was across the road from the beach. The beach area here is reserved for hotel guests and we spent our afternoons here. The hotel is situated about 10-15 minutes walk from the Old Harbour shown on the right. *Both images Nikon 28mm f2.8 AI*

Having visited here last September we were quite familiar with the Old Town area. I always wonder where my photographs might come from when we re-visit anywhere. As usual I needn’t have worried. We found a few new places, some different cafes, took in some lovely sunsets and we were really here to just chill out, after a busy first half of this year.

Most of our days followed the same routine with a walk into the new and old towns after breakfast. We normally stayed out until lunchtime before making our way back and then spending the afternoon on sunbeds at the beach. I did snorkel in the sea on a couple of occasions but there was nothing much to see. Swimming bores me senseless and just looking at a sandy floor was better than spending time in the sea with no goggles and a snorkel.

The Old Town shopping area. *Auto Takumar 35mm f2.3*

We spent our evenings walking back through the Old Port which comes alive with harbourside restaurants at that time of day. A short walk from there, on the coast road, are some fantastic sunset viewing spots. We made our way there most evenings and joined other tourists and locals sharing the same sunset experience. There was always a nice vibe there with lots of different nationalities.

Quite often, in these situations, people see my camera and automatically assume I know what I’m doing, so I regularly get asked to take pictures of people. I never mind and we’ve had some really great interactions with others as a result. I quite often learn a thing or two about the mobile phones I’m using to take these pics 🙂

I took snaps for all the people here watching the sunset with us.

We thought Rethymno seemed a lot quieter than when we were last here, even taking into consideration that June weather is a bit more unpredictable than September. I did ask the waitress in our favourite coffee stop about that. She confirmed what we thought and said ”yes, the tourists are staying away”.

We’re not quite sure why that might be but reckon it’s probably a mix of different factors. The UK ‘cost of living crisis’ will certainly be having an impact on the number of British visitors travelling this year. We’ve recently seen package holiday prices (outside of school holiday times) being reduced with our usual tour operator. The war in the middle east will also be having some impact I guess.

One of our favourite coffee stops in the Old Town. *Both images Nikon 28mm f2.8 AI*

We also used the coffee shop in the local bus station. It was on the side of the ticket office overlooking the sea. It was nice as we were sat with the locals rather than tourists and we liked their coffee cups. We stopped here most days and never managed to get a repeat cup. *Nikon 28mm f2.8 AI and Nikon 105mm f2.5*

Another Old Town scene. I was lucky to get this. A herd of tourists on a guided tour walked though just after. *Nikon 28mm f2.8 AI*

We had a lovely holiday in Rethymno. I’d definitely recommend it as a place to visit. I’m not sure if we’ll go back for a while though as I don’t feel the same way about it as I do Rhodes, where we go year after year and never tire of it. There’s other Greek islands to visit as well although we are going to Kos in October, staying in Kos Town. That will be a new place for us.

Photography notes: I decided to use my vintage lenses for most of my photography on this holiday. I did buy a Sony 24-105 to partner with my Sony A7 just before the holiday and the sunset shots, shown here, were taken with that combination. Other than that everything else was shot with vintage glass.

I really enjoyed using my old lenses but I’ve developed favourites. By the end of the week I was using four primes – Nikkor 105mm f2.5, Vivitar 55mm f2.8 Macro, Auto Takumar 35mm f2.3 and a Nikkor 28mm f2.8 AI. The few other lenses I had with me stayed in the bag. I’ll travel lighter on our next holiday.

All the lenses were great to use but the 28mm Nikkor lens was a revelation. I’d read plenty of reviews before buying it and what I really wanted was the AIS version. None were available at the time of purchase. This lens proved a really capable performer though and the images from it are excellent.

On our last visit here I did write about the problems I had with dust getting on my camera sensor, because I was swapping lenses so often. It was no different this time and I had to clean my sensor every morning. Unlike our last visit, I’d brought a sensor cleaning kit with me so, it was easy to keep on top of any sensor spot problems.

I’ll finish there with a few more images from our stay…