0Sürme & Girit'te araç kiralama

To see much of Cre­te you are likely to need a car or other vehic­le to get aro­und. The­re are buses and taxis on Cre­te but a pri­va­te vehic­le will be fas­ter, more com­for­tab­le, and more cost effec­ti­ve than taxis. It is also pos­sib­le to take your own car, veya başka araçlar kiralamak için.

Araba kiralama

The­re are a huge num­ber of car ren­tal agen­ci­es on Cre­te, from small local busi­nes­ses to the big mul­ti­na­ti­onal brands. Car hire costs vary sig­ni­fi­cantly with a small car out of peak season ava­ilab­le from £50 a week, to fan­ci­er vehic­les in peak season cos­ting seve­ral hund­red pounds a week. Gene­rally you will want to spend as litt­le time in the car as pos­sib­le so we recom­mend get­ting the most cost effec­ti­ve opti­on available.

The Gre­eks dri­ve in the right like the rest of Euro­pe so if you are a UK dri­ver used to dri­ving on the left this will take a litt­le get­ting used to. If you are ine­x­pe­ri­en­ced at dri­ving on the other side of the road I recom­mend having anot­her quali­fi­ed dri­ver in the pas­sen­ger seat and asking them to try to be alert and to alert you if they think you’­re get­ting it wrong.

The majo­rity of hire vehic­les are pet­rol rat­her than diesel, and are manu­al rat­her than auto­ma­tic. Bugüne kadar, hyb­rid and elect­ric vehic­les are very rare on Cre­te. Eğer ihtiyacın varsa 6 or 7 seater you may find it che­aper to hire 2 küçük arabalar (assu­ming you have 2 peop­le wil­ling to dri­ve) so it is always worth com­pa­ring the cost of the­se 2 options.

The vast majo­rity of roads on Cre­te are now pro­perly paved so you are unli­kely to need an off-road capab­le vehic­le unless you really want to exp­lo­re off the beaten track. The most use­ful featu­re of an off-road capab­le vehic­le in Cre­te is the hig­her gro­und cle­aran­ce, rat­her than having all-whe­el-dri­ve so if you wish to hire an SUV I recom­mend avo­iding 4WD vehic­les that are really aimed at road users — ins­te­ad get somet­hing like a Suzu­ki Jimny which is more basic in the inte­ri­or but offers a good gro­und clearance.

To find car hire I recom­mend using the links on Money­Sa­vin­gE­x­pert to the com­pa­ri­son sites. Look out for agents which do not have col­lec­ti­on points at your point of arri­val (e.g. Herak­li­on Air­port) as a shutt­le bus to the car is pro­bably the last thing you will want to have to do after you arri­ve. Also be awa­re that most deals do not inc­lu­de addi­ti­onal dri­vers, araba koltukları, çatı kutuları, etc and that the­se will cost ext­ra. Also note that whilst all deals inc­lu­de insu­ran­ce, most of them have a very high excess that you would have to pay in the event of any dama­ge to a vehic­le. I always take a seri­es of pho­tos of the vehic­le befo­re set­ting off in it, and then aga­in when retur­ning the vehic­le so the agents know you will chal­len­ge any fal­se cla­ims. I have never had to dis­pu­te any cla­ims in Cre­te, alt­ho­ugh I have else­w­he­re in Euro­pe. Ben bunu bir 5 minu­te job that pro­vi­de much peace of mind.

It is also pos­sib­le to take our “excess cover” which means you don­’t pay any excess. This is usu­ally a very expen­si­ve ext­ra so I don­’t recom­mend get­ting it as part of your ren­tal deal — ins­te­ad you can get “excess insu­ran­ce” from an inde­pen­dent pro­vi­der. In the event of dama­ge you would pay the excess to the car hire com­pany and then rec­la­im the cost of the excess from the insu­rer back home. The cost of the­se poli­ci­es is usu­ally aro­und £20-£30 and they pro­vi­de peace of mind so they are worth con­si­de­ring. Money­Sa­vin­gE­x­pert has a sec­ti­on with infor­ma­ti­on on this that I recommend.

Kendi arabanızı feribotla götürmek

The­re is a regu­lar car ferry ser­vi­ce to Cre­te from Pira­e­us (Athens har­bo­ur) so you can take your own car to Cre­te. Birleşik Krallık'ta yerleşikseniz, bunun neredeyse 5,000 mile round trip but on the upsi­de you do get to see some gre­at parts of Euro­pe on the way. I have done the dri­ve twi­ce, dri­ving out­bo­und by going east and then south (thro­ugh Ger­many, Czech Repub­lic, Hun­gary, Ser­bia and Gre­ece and a few other count­ri­es too) and retur­ning along the Adri­atic and across the Alps (e.g. via Alba­nia, Cro­atia, İtalya, and Ger­many amongst others). Sha­red 3 or 4‑ways the costs of doing so are very simi­lar to the cost of flying and and hiring a car in peak season.

The night­ferry from Athens to Cre­te (Pira­e­us to Herak­li­on) is very reaso­nab­le and typi­cally costs aro­und E400-500 for 1 car and an insi­de 4‑bed bunk. The­re is reaso­nably pri­ced food and drink ser­ved onbo­ard, the beds are reaso­nably com­for­tab­le, and a cabin inc­lu­des a sho­wer. The­re is also a day­ti­me sailing which is che­ape­ar but you will then use up a day of holi­day on the ferry and will need an ext­ra night of accom­mo­da­ti­on on land which pro­bably makes the ove­rall cost very simi­lar so I recom­mend the night ferry if you can fit the timings. It is gre­at arri­ving in Cre­te in the mor­ning fresh and ready for a full day.

Sözleşmeler

Cre­te, diğer ülkeler gibi, has dif­fe­rent con­ven­ti­ons to your home country when it comes to road use. The Cre­tans are gene­rally very cour­te­o­us dri­vers, cer­ta­inly much more so than typi­cal UK dri­vers, but if you don­’t unders­tand the con­ven­ti­ons you may mis­ta­kenly think othe­r­wi­se. Here is a quick sum­mary of some of the notab­le differences.

  • Eğer kırmızı ışıkta ön arabaysan, the car behind will likely beep you to let you know when the light turns gre­en — the­y­’­re being help­ful not rude
  • Cre­tans love to beep to say hel­lo to peop­le, and to celeb­ra­te (e.g. a wed­ding pro­ces­si­on), beeping is very rarely used for a nega­ti­ve reason
  • Roun­da­bo­uts (traf­fic circ­les) are pretty rare and all the dif­fe­rent visi­tors on the island apply the­ir own rules to them. The Cre­tans seem to adap­ted to this may­hem by adop­ting a first come first ser­ved app­ro­ach. App­ro­ach with care.
  • Cars have right of way at pedest­ri­an cros­sings, kehribar rengi bir ışık yanıp sönmediği sürece.
  • Yükseltilmiş bir açık avuç içi (usu­ally used as a thank you in the UK) might be con­si­de­red rude, don­’t bot­her with it

Comp­le­te-Cre­te güzel (and lon­ger) artic­le abo­ut the­se dif­fe­ren­ces and some of the reasons for them.

Otopark

Road-side par­king is widesp­re­ad in Cre­te, gene­rally you can do as the locals do — i.e. park whe­re-ever you see other peop­le par­king. The­re are some sec­ti­ons of cle­ar­way whe­re you sho­uld­n­’t park which are cle­arly sig­ned. The other key thing to be awa­re of is that in some pla­ces a sys­tem ope­ra­tes whe­re you park on 1 sadece yolun kenarı, and the cor­rect side chan­ges from month to month — one side of the road for even num­ber months, and the other side for odd num­ber months. This will be indi­ca­ted with a I and an II with the stan­dard red circ­le and diago­nal sho­wing which months are pro­hi­bi­ted for that side.

Motosiklet & quadbikes

It is pos­sib­le to hire motor­bi­kes and quad­bi­kes on Cre­te. My advi­ce is don­’t. For short dis­tan­ces you would be bet­ter wal­king, and for lon­ger trips a car is vastly safer. Cre­te does­n­’t have the best record for road safety, and whilst things have sig­ni­fi­cantly imp­ro­ved over the last deca­de a num­ber of peop­le are kil­led every year on quad­bi­kes and motor­bi­kes (e.g. 2018). ABTA has repe­atedly (e.g. here and here) advi­sed aga­inst quad­bi­ke and moped hire. By law you are requ­ired to wear a full set of safety gear but many peop­le don­’t beca­use wearing a full set of leat­hers in 35C heat isn­’t very nice. You also need to have a valid dri­ving licen­se to hire any moto­ri­sed vehic­le but I am awa­re of many cases whe­re the­se rules have been igno­red in the past by some ren­tal agents. I have also heard many tales of scams invol­ving quad­bi­ke hired to youn­ger peop­le in the more “party ori­en­ta­ted” parts of the island (e.g. Malia) whe­re the vehic­le is late rmys­te­ri­o­usly lost, sto­len, or dama­ged, and the agency then demands lar­ge sums of money beca­use the ren­ter did­n­’t make sure they had pro­per pape­r­work and insu­ran­ce for the ren­tal. Quad­bi­kes are also not per­mit­ted on the major nati­onal roads, which makes lon­ger dis­tan­ce jour­neys on them much slo­wer. My advi­ce is to avo­id all of the­se issu­es by hiring a pro­per car, with all the pro­per legal pape­r­work and licen­se etc, from a legi­ti­ma­te agent. Araba daha güvenlidir, trans­ports more peop­le and lug­ga­ge, and thanks to air con­di­ti­oning is much more com­for­tab­le. A small car booked in advan­ce is likely to work out bet­ter value than a quad­bi­ke booked after arrival.

Diğer seçenekler

Bisikletler

Bicyc­les are ava­ilab­le for hire in Cre­te and can be a good way of doing short dis­tan­ce journeys.

taksiler

The­re are taxi­’s widely ava­ilab­le in Cre­te but the pri­ce can vary con­si­de­rably. For occa­si­onal lon­ger jour­neys a taxi can be a decent opti­on but make sure the pri­ce is set beforehand.

Otobüsler

Buses are the main form of pub­lic trans­port on Cre­te and are widely ava­ilab­le. The quality has imp­ro­ved in the last deca­de or so and they are now air con­di­ti­oned and reaso­nably comfortable.

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