Kapsaliana Village Hotel
Kapsaliana, Rethymno, Greece
★ Verified by our editors · September 2026
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The verdict
An 18th-century hamlet that pressed olive oil for the Arkadi Monastery, emptied in the 1950s and brought back to life by the architect Myron Toupoyannis as a hotel of 25 rooms. The stone houses keep their arches and beamed ceilings, the old press still stands in the lounge, and Crete's largest olive grove runs on every side. It holds one MICHELIN Key, and Elaia, its open-air kitchen, is reason enough to stay in for dinner.
A slow week inland, between the olive trees, the pool and a long dinner under the lemon trees.
You want the sea at your door: the coast is a drive away, and this is a hotel for staying put.
Ask for one of the olive-mill suites, where the old millstones are part of the furniture, and visit the olive-oil museum before your first dinner at Elaia.
The rooms
Twenty-five rooms and suites across the village houses, in local stone with original arches, timber ceilings and terraces over the grove. Some keep fireplaces or the old mill machinery; the newer suites have their own plunge pools behind stone walls.
The setting
In the hills east of Rethymno, near the Arkadi Monastery, the village sits in the middle of the island's largest olive grove, with the sea visible on the horizon. The hotel has a pool framed by bougainvillea, a cocktail bar under the lemon trees and a small museum of the olive mill.
The food
Elaia is the hotel's restaurant, cooking Cretan and Mediterranean dishes with produce from its own land in an open-air kitchen; the Guide singles it out as farm-to-table. The hotel also runs tastings of local wines, and the old mill is now a small olive-oil museum.
Getting there
About an hour by car from Heraklion airport and a little more from Chania. A car is essential: the last stretch is a country road through the olive groves.
Good to know
Children are welcome. Rethymno's old town and the beaches of the north coast are within half an hour, but most guests leave the car parked after the first day.
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