We just returned from our second vacation at Niriides, the property of the Xanthoudakis family in Nopigia, Crete. We first were there in 2014, and returning in June 2016, I recalled Thomas Wolfe's prediction that "you can't go home again." Well in this instance he was wrong!
The three apartments are housed in a marvelous building facing a virtually private pebble beach in the tiny village of Nopigia. The wonderful Xanthoudakis family has created an immaculate, perfectly provisioned vacation apartment in each instance, with private balconies facing the sea. The kindness and generosity of these people would be hard to exaggerate.
Nopigia is adjacent to the sweet town of Kissimos where you can buy your freshly caught fish in the morning, have a coffee under sheltering awnings in the square, go to the beach at Falasarna in the afternoon, and then cook your fish in the apartment's convection oven for dinner! Or, go to one of the two great Tavernas in little Nopigia and indulge!
After you've seen Knossos, and the Archeology Museum in Heracleon, and visited some of the marvelous ruins at Phaestos, Sitia, and Malia, I recommend Nopigia with its access to Falasarna, Paleochora, and Elephanisi as a one or two week restoration for body and soul.