Ammos Hotel

Ammos stands right on the sand at Agioi Apostoloi, five kilometres west of Chania's old town, on a plot the Tsepetis family bought in 1976. Nikos Tsepetis opened the hotel himself in 1996, at the age of 25, and still runs it. In 2005 Elisa Manola Architects stripped the older building of its arches and balusters and turned it into white volumes with teak screens and a mosaic wall at reception. Tsepetis has kept adding to the interiors ever since, and the hotel now holds pieces by Faye Toogood, Jasper Morrison and Michael Anastassiades. Each of the 33 studios and suites has a kitchenette, and there is no television unless you ask for one.

The bay is sandy, shallow and sheltered, which is why so many guests are families and why so many of them return. The pool is heated in April, May and October. A children's play area has a nanny on weekdays from 11 to 19 and on Saturdays from 10 to 14, and cots, high chairs, baby baths and bottle sterilisers are lent out. Dogs that are trained, calm and friendly with small children are accepted in the rooms, on a lead.

Breakfast is served until 11.30, and Condé Nast Traveller once wrote that it alone made the trip worthwhile. The breads and cakes arrive each morning from Red Jane, the bakery Tsepetis opened in Chania in 2023 in a 1930s foundry. Rooms are not sold on travel websites: you send a request to the hotel, and each booking is handled personally.