External Reviews

• Ideas and Solutions for the Home (Greece) January 1998: "Here, tradition comes alive without the playing of drums or the crashing of cymbals, and the aroma of bread cooling on the table reminds one of the ways we used to enjoy things, before the advent of the microwave oven. Refrigerators operating on natural gas, wood-burning ovens, monastic tables, iron beds, lighting... a candle, organic farming, tranquillity. A mere 55 km from Chania, at the 'stone village' of Milia, you think that you've altered dimensions."

  Eco (Greece) 2003: "Perhaps the most difficult thing is to convey the atmosphere of Milia. To explain why the guests don't care about closing the doors to their guest-houses, and why they greet each other when they meet on the settlement's old stone paths; why, while they may not know you, the guests of old are willing to help the uninitiated; why no one speaks loudly, and why all lower the sound on their mobile telephones if not leave them in some corner."

  Jacoline Vinke's Great Small Hotels in Greece: "Milia is a tiny settlement hidden amongst century-old chestnut trees in the mountains of western Crete... The main idea was to turn the place into a 'retreat' guesthouse, but that was not all. Biological farming, reforestation and environmental protection were also on the agenda. Milia became a fully sustainable operation. Solar energy is used to generate electricity, there are wood-fired boilers to heat water for showers, and waste is recycled. But don't be afraid that this is a bunch of tree-hugging new agers, it is nothing like that. Milia simply is the work of young people who happen to really care about the mountains where they have grown up. And they have created a fantastic little getaway."

  The Guardian, UK.

  Saturday September 16 2006

  This tiny settlement in a fold of the White mountains was abandoned after a cholera outbreak, briefly sheltered guerrillas in the second world war, before being resurrected by two local lads in the 1980s. Stone houses were reroofed, spring water piped in, terraces replanted, livestock introduced, a generator installed. Fourteen cottages now dot the plane-shaded valley. All are pure rusticity: iron beds, woodburning stoves (logs supplied), flagged floors, tiny windows in crude walls. Bathrooms are basic, but the greatest luxuries - fine air, food and company - are in endless supply.