Cycladic home in Arkadi
4.93 out of 5 average rating, 43 reviews4.93 (43)Villa Manolesso in Kavousi
Village : Kavousi is a very small, peaceful, rarely visited village at the center of Rethymno county at the middle of Crete (30 minutes drive from Rethymno town). It is located at a hillside viewing a wide horizon of small valleys, hills and island’s highest peak : Psiloritis. If you wish to avoid the common touristic resorts, this is a place you will enjoy all around the year.
Come during Summer time and visit lively north beaches (25+ minutes drive), or less visited but more beautiful south beaches (60+ minutes drive) and gorges.
Visit us on Autumn to explore Inland villages or less crowded and less hot coasts.
Join us on Winter for driving around the county in a variable weather, or trekking at snowy mountains.
Travel to Crete in Spring, while the island is still green and blooming full of herbs and plants that highlight the local cuisine, the sea is crystal clean and chilly at the empty - private like - beaches before the tourist season.
This is a villa constructed by my family, for my family. We decided to make it available for rent, since we can only be there for a few weekends each year. This old reconstructed stone building used to be two different residences. But we connected them and the result is this spacious stone house with two entrances, two halls, five bedrooms, four bathrooms, two WC, one store room in the ground floor, one living room, one dining room, one kitchen and two terraces on the first floor.
Since there are some great views from the southeast towards the west, we decided to make a terrace on the first floor as well, so that we could fully enjoy them. The terrace is perfect for breakfast or dinner during the summer time. The vine provides a thin shadow, and the horizon will make your eyes relax. Especially during the winter, the constantly changing weather within a day, offers a variety of different panoramic views. As for the sunny days of winter you can spoil yourself on the terrace having your coffee or enjoying sunbathing in the middle of January!
Since we wanted the terrace to be on the first floor, we also wanted the living room attached to it, so that we could move between the two areas, quite easily. The living room is a spacious and cozy corner with 3 sofas and a long low table placed around the fire place. This is where we spend most of the time during the winter, having breakfast or playing games, reading or having a simple dinner, cooking in the fireplace or having a relaxing drink, watching a movie or just falling asleep. Moreover, there is a long table for your laptop, your paper work, or simply for leaving stuff that you will deal with later. We wanted a WC there too, so that we won’t have to go to the ground floor to use one.
The kitchen is placed at the connection point of the two previous old residences, thus being easily accessible from both sides. Enjoying food is very important in Greek culture. So this is an 'easy' kitchen with a window viewing south. It is very important that it is placed among the living room, the dining room and the terrace in order to minimize the walking distance when all you want is simply to get a cold beer from the fridge or to check the roast in the oven.
Next to the kitchen, there is the large dining room. To be honest I rarely use it since I prefer to eat either in the living room or at the terrace. Still... this is the place where my parents serve our guests and... this is the place where we (old friends from our high school 'era'), play dungeons & dragons tabletop game -rarely, unfortunately-.
On the ground floor, there are two entrances. One for each of the old houses. The eastern entrance leads to an old furnished hall. From there you can access two bedrooms with their private bathrooms, the store room, a shared WC and the stairs to the first floor. Likewise, the western entrance opens to a hall that leads to three bedrooms with two bathrooms and the stairs up to the first floor. I could describe each room in detail, but I am sure you will be able to discern even the slightest details in the photos provided.
Outside there is a garden with flowers, vegetables and trees, and -depending on the time of the year- you can freely get your tomatoes, grapes, cherries, apples or anything else my father has planted; Next to the garden there is the swimming pool. We never intended to have one since we all prefer to swim in the sea which is quite near. But when we decided to have this place rented we realized that it was definitely a sine qua non. So there it is, surrounded by light colored stone floor -and, once again, you can have a look at the photo.
At the back of the house there is an open storage space where my father keeps... everything and nothing. I think all fathers have a few places like that.
I believe that by now you should have an idea of how the place looks like. To close this -elaborate- description, let me add some of the residence’s amenities:
-TV - wireless Internet - Smoking better done outside - Heating - Pool ((PHONE NUMBER HIDDEN)m) - Kitchen - Free parking in yard - Indoor fireplace - Washing Machine
Have in mind that closest market is is 10 minutes away (with car), supermarket is 25 minutes away (with car), closest beach is 25 minutes away (with car) , there is no bus stop at the village.. so you need to have a car.
charged extra:
cleaning : 60 euro per time asked for
heating (radiator) : 6euro/hour used (in order to heat this large house, the gas consumption costs 4 to 8 euros per hour
heating (fire place) : 1000 kilos of wood costs less than 150euros. depends on your consumption
for every extra person (7th to 10th) : 10euro/day per extra person
swiming pool is NOT available from 1st of October until 1st of June.
