Crete, Greece, GreenWays Motor Tours

Greenways offer a range of tours, beach & bike holidays or motorcycle hire to suit individual customer requirements. All four members of staff we had contact with were efficient, friendly, helpful, prompt and punctual in their dealings with us. We felt very well looked after, with everything taken care of as agreed, and no nasty surprises. My only negative comments are about the variable condition of some of the bikes. The range of machines is more extensive than shown on the web site, with newer machines in much better condition. I feel some rental bikes are not capable of passing a UK MOT test, and show significant wear and tear. We found Greenways a good company, who treated us very well and would thoroughly recommend them to others for a great holiday.We only went on one guided ride out. It was a wonderful experience, tailored to our own interests, on smaller roads, with and without tarmac " great routes. There was plenty of sightseeing, a coffee and lunch stop, our guide was very friendly and helpful. His English was surprisingly good, especially as it was his third language. We would have loved more guided rides but it was too expensive for only two participants.Our first three nights were spent at the Marinos Beach Apartments, the standard hotel used by Greenways for their guests. It is located in the resort area of Platanias, five kilometres through urban sprawl to Rethymnon, and within walking distance of the Greenways office in Adelianos Kampos. It is a perfect hotel for sunworshippers due to the huge swimming pool and direct access to the beach. Breakfasts are served in the beachside restaurant, with outdoor tables available. The hotel is set some distance back from the busy main road where there are many shops and restaurants. Our pleasant studio room was simply furnished, the large balcony was equipped with a table and chairs. I found the shower room rather shabby, but nonetheless functional. Centrally controlled air conditioning is fitted and a room safe is available at extra charge.On the third day we changed our Beta Alp 200 and BMW X Country for BMW GS 650's with luggage and set off for our own impromptu tour of Crete. We found lots of good routes and roads, with plenty of sightseeing covering 1300 km at mostly slow speeds. The furthest extremities of Crete in the east and west are rather barren and windswept. Navigation was fairly easy, bearing in mind the limitations of Greek road signs. On one memorable occasion I was confused by the presence of a huge reservoir that was not on the map, eventually our path ended in a field. Luckily the two children on a scooter behind us became our guide, and kindly lead us back on route. We had a great time exploring the varied terrain, enjoyed the riding, and found the other road users to be perfectly good company, with a minimum of near death experiences. Our enduring riding memories include places we fondly referred to as ' the road of bones ', ' the road of 17 hairpins plus a few bends ', ' the damned valley ' and ' the mountains of doom '.The map provided by Greenways is not really good enough for detailed navigation, I recommend the advance purchase of a ' Rough Guides ' map of Crete, it is probably as good as you can get, does show contour lines, but is not entirely accurate or up to date. A swiss army knife proved useful to repair a back light and open the bottle of wine we found in our fridge.We were an odd sight on Crete, with our armoured clothing and crash helmets. Most people are on scooters, and wearing tee shirts with the wind in their hair.Panniers made the GS 650 extremely wide, whereas the top box was much nicer to ride with. For navigation I put the map in a plastic wallet and stuck it to the tank with masking tape.Having toured all over Crete I reached the conclusion that Rethymnon is an excellent tour base. It is well connected with large and small roads and reasonably centrally located providing good access for a wide variety of day rides. The town probably has sufficient night life to interest sociable types. Use of lightweight trail type bikes is great fun off road if you do not need to carry luggage. Perhaps the only drawback is the lack of scenic walking country in the immediate vicinity, probably not of concern to most guests. Our trip was in late October, the weather was mostly warm and sunny, overnight accommodation was easy to find and reasonably priced.After we returned the BMW's to Greenways office we had a quick meal in the restaurant next door, it was lovely and set us up well to endure the hell hole which is Heraklion airport. The place looks OK, but the staff are incompetent and officious, and the facilities are inadequate to cater for the large number of travellers, even out of season; to cap it all the prices are extortionate. Alternatively Chania airport is a similar transfer distance, or arrival by boat at Rethymnon port is afforded by all year round ferries from Piraeus (Athens).