Libyan Sea cottage, south Crete

Makry Gialos sits on Crete's south-east coast, on the Libyan Sea side of the island where the mountains drop to a string of small sheltered bays. This is a seventy square metre whitewashed cottage — two bedrooms, one bathroom, thick masonry walls that hold the cool, and a pergola terrace under an old grape vine that shades the whole outdoor table by July. There is a small walled garden with lemon and pomegranate, a solar hot-water cylinder on the roof, and a storage room that converts easily to a third bedroom or studio.

Crete is fully open to foreign buyers with no border-zone complication on this stretch. Expect the usual Greek process: AFM tax number, a lawyer's title search (essential in rural Crete, where inheritance splits titles across many relatives), notary, and around 8–10% in fees over the purchase price. Annual ENFIA is modest. Because the south coast has a longer season than the north, buy-to-let returns from May through October are genuinely useful, and a cottage of this type lets well to walkers and divers.

The beach is 350 metres downhill: a crescent of fine grey-gold sand in a bay protected by a headland, shelving gently, with the calmest water on the island because the Libyan Sea here is sheltered from the meltemi that hammers the north coast all summer. Water temperature reaches the high twenties by August and stays swimmable into November. Ten minutes east are the wilder beaches at Koutsouras and Analipsi, and a boat from the harbour runs to Koufonisi island's empty white sand.

The village itself is a working fishing harbour with a taverna row, two mini-markets, a bakery, a pharmacy, a doctor and a petrol station. Ierapetra — the largest town on the south coast, with supermarkets, banks, a hospital and a proper Saturday market — is twenty-five minutes west. The area's economy is greenhouses and olives as much as tourism, so it functions in winter, when temperatures rarely drop below fifteen degrees in the day.

Sitia airport is fifty minutes east with domestic and seasonal flights; Heraklion, ninety minutes north-west, is the main international gateway. Buses run along the coast road to Ierapetra and Sitia. Beyond swimming there is the Pefki gorge walk, the palm forest at Vai, diving on the reefs off Makry Gialos, and the Minoan site at Zakros — plus a mountain interior of stone villages that see almost no visitors at all.