What to Do at Your Villa in Crete: 15 Nights In, Done Brilliantly

You chose the villa for a reason. The infinity edge catching the last of the light. The terrace big enough for everyone. The silence at ten o'clock that no hotel on the island can sell you.

And then, most nights, everybody piles into the hire car and drives twenty minutes to a taverna.

There is nothing wrong with the taverna — Crete's are among the best in Greece. But a villa is a rented stage, and most families use it for sleeping. Here are fifteen ways to use the evening you already paid for.

The easy five (nothing to book, nothing to buy)

1. The golden-hour swim. Everyone swims at noon when the light is flat and the water is busy. Swim at 19:30 instead. The pool holds the day's heat, the cicadas stop, and the sky does something absurd behind the hills.

2. Long table, one dish. Cook one thing properly rather than five things anxiously. A tray of lamb and potatoes goes into the oven at seven and comes out at nine, and the two hours in between are the holiday.

3. The village-shop wine tasting. Buy four bottles of Cretan wine — a Vidiano, an Assyrtiko, a Liatiko, a Kotsifali — for less than a round of cocktails. Pour them blind, argue about them, write the scores on a napkin. Nobody ever remembers the cocktails.

4. Cards on the terrace. Bring a pack. Teach the children a game that involves gentle cheating. This sounds like nothing and is remembered for years.

5. Lie on the warm stone and look up. Away from the resorts, Crete's skies are genuinely dark. Ten minutes for your eyes to adjust and the Milky Way arrives — we wrote a whole guide to where and when to look, including August's meteor shower.

The five worth arranging that morning

6. A private chef. Not as extravagant as it sounds once you divide it by eight people and compare it to a restaurant bill with taxis.

7. A Cretan cooking lesson at your own kitchen island. Dakos, dolmades, bougatsa. The children make the mess at home rather than in public.

8. A raki and mezze night. Ask the villa's caretaker where they buy their raki. You will get a better bottle and a better story than any shop can sell you.

9. Live music on the terrace. A lyra and laouto duo will play for an hour for less than most people assume. It turns a birthday into an event.

10. A massage by the pool at dusk. Therapists across Chania and Heraklion travel to villas. Book two back-to-back and the adults get an evening they'll actually talk about.

The five for the night that has to be special

Every holiday has one night carrying more weight than the others — a birthday, an anniversary, the last evening, the night the whole family finally arrived.

11. Name the night. Give it a theme and a dress code, however silly. Structure is what turns a dinner into an occasion.

12. Print the photos. A pocket printer costs less than a meal out. Peg the day's pictures along the terrace with string and clothes pegs before dinner.

13. The toast nobody expects. Someone stands up and says the thing they'd normally save for a wedding speech. Do it early, before the wine.

14. Light the whole terrace. Fifty tea lights and a string of festoon bulbs cost almost nothing and change the room completely. Light beats decoration every time.

15. Turn the terrace into a cinema. This is the one we built a company around, so treat the next paragraph as biased — but honestly reasoned.

Why the film wins

A cinema night solves the problem every villa evening has: it gives four generations something to do together without anyone having to make conversation. Grandparents, teenagers and six-year-olds cannot agree on a restaurant. They can all watch the same film.

We arrive at your villa in the late afternoon, build a 200-inch screen while the light is still good, set out the seating, run the sound, and start the film as darkness falls — usually around a quarter to nine in high summer. Popcorn, blankets, a host who stays for the evening. By midnight it is gone, and the terrace looks exactly as it did.

Packages run from €450 for a family night to €1,950 for the full production, and proposals are a speciality. There is no deposit until the date is confirmed, and if the weather turns we move you free of charge.

The villa is already the best venue on the island. It just needs a programme.

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