Holidays on a Greek Island: tips on the Covid situation

Hello dear fellow students,

Some of you are probably enjoying holidays, while others might be studying for your courses for the summer semester. Right now, I am preparing my professional research project, in order to complete my MA and graduate. So far, I’ve received a great amount of help and guidance from my advisor, and I am moving forward with my project and I hope that I will manage to complete my MA with success.

Before I started focusing on my project, I had my vacation on a Greek island and I will tell you how my experience was. This year the restrictions on travel due to Covid were a bit more strict. I went with my friends to Crete at the beginning of July for almost 15 days, and at the time people could travel anywhere in Greece just with a self-test. For everyone else, coming from abroad, they needed-and still need- an antigen (rapid) test, or PCR test. If you are planning on coming to Greece in the next few weeks, remember to check the local restrictions at the time.

Crete is a big island and there are many beautiful beaches and sights to visit, but it’s best to plan your visit to see the best bits. We stayed in Heraklion, so Chania and most of the popular beaches were pretty far. Most of the people on Tik Tok or, other social media, talk mostly about Elafonisi beach or Seitan Limania but, my favorite beach was Voulisma beach in Agios Nikolaos.

Of course, we visited Elafonisi and it was very beautiful but it was full of people, and to be honest, we didn’t enjoy our time there as much as in Voulisma. The location of Seitan Limania is amazing as well, but you have to be careful driving there because the road leads downhill and at some point you have to go on foot. If you go down to the beach (after you take 2 or 10 amazing photos of the place and the view), you will need special shoes, because the road is full of rocks. On your way there, you might see a few goats so be prepared and don’t get scared if you see them out of the blue.

Everyone was very helpful and friendly with us, and all of the restaurants brought us, as a gift, dessert and raki, and yeah you should definitely try raki. Raki is a special alcoholic drink that they make there and it’s traditional. I am not an expert, and I am not from Crete, so I cannot exactly tell you what is it made from, but is a drink similar to Ouzo and it’s one of the island’s musts.

If you have any plans on visiting Greece this summer, and especially Crete, keep those things in mind because they might come handy.

Stay safe

Eirini Pantelidou