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.

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.

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 with people of all 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 mobile phone cameras when I’m being asked to take these pics 🙂

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.

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 we went away 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 image quality from it is 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.

My newish, larger Sony A7 camera brought more attention than I was used to over recent years. It had always been the same walking around with my old Canon 5D over my shoulder but the attention had petered off in recent times having changed to my smaller Fuji cameras. The touts outside the restaurants, the guys trying to entice you in, referred to me as Mr Paparazzi more than once during our stay!

It doesn’t bother me in the least but l find strangers are more likely to say ‘yes’ to a pic if I’m holding a smaller camera. It wasn’t such a problem in Crete as I knew from my last visit the locals would be reluctant to pose for me, so I didn’t ask. All in all though a great week with my camera and old lenses. I’ll finish there with a few more images from our stay…

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All images: ©Stephen Hyde 2007-2026 – All rights reserved.