Gino and Amy were so helpful! We had to move flights and at one point thought we couldn’t go. The holiday was fab and I will continue to book through DialAFlight. Thanks guys!
Matt Power excellent as usual! DialAFlight never fails
Jamie Foskin provided us with a fantastic service. Booking information received in very good time. The recommended holiday destination was first class. We had an extremely enjoyable holiday and would have no hesitation in booking through DialAflight in the future.
Roy Copeland is professional, helpful, friendly and one of the main reasons we keep coming back to DialAFlight
Very responsive from the outset; quick to provide documents and responses to questions. Would definitely recommend. Thanks to Teddy and Les for making it all run smoothly
Gino is simply the best - he is my go to person for any holiday. Efficient, client focused and genuine. Already recommended him to friends
Excellent service from Taylor. Organisation was perfect and ran smoothly as usual.
Simon Pitman came to our rescue when our holiday package with another company was cancelled 4 days before we were due to go. He succeeded in securing flights and accommodation to reinstate our family holiday to Greece. Wonderful service
Eve was fabulous - she absolutely matched what I was looking for in a holiday to the resort and we had a wonderful time.
Abi was brilliant
Abbie was great, kept us updated at all times
Abi was great and went over and above to answer queries and ensure we had a wonderful holiday
You always come up with what we want and the flights you found for Thessaloniki were so much cheaper than those for others on our trip
Another great holiday organised by Stacey at DialAFlight. Outstanding hotel and everything went smoothly.
Fantastic service from Dexter. Wonderful holiday. They gave me a lot of help when I struggled with government forms
As always everything was excellent! Can’t wait for our next trip, completely forgot about Covid as everything went to smoothly.
Declan was a pleasure to book a holiday with - so helpful in every way
Blake took care of everything from start to finish. From meeting our holiday requirements with the hotel, location and COVID-19 advice, right up to before we left. We’ll definitely be using him again!
Very helpful, reassuring and supportive at every step. Very helpful app
Amazing service from DialAFlight. A big thank you to Roray for recommending such a fab hotel and resort!
Dale is superb and helped enormously when the BA strike days were announced making all the necessary changes. I recommend him to everyone.
Another flawless trip
Thank you to Otis for being so kind and professional as always
Thanks Dexter. Sani Beach a really great resort. Best keep it a secret, OK.
Great holiday all set up nicely by yourselves, will be back to book with you again soon. Thanks.
Michael was excellent - especially advising to book restaurants beforehand
Only thing to be added to the itinerary would be the pick up time the transfer taxi will be at the hotel for the trip back to the airport.
Brilliant as always.
Thanks for your reassuring support on the phone when I was concerned about procedures and paper documents which you kindly sent by post.
Been booking my holidays for 20 years with Jack it’s like we are one, he always knows what I like, what a guy.
Vassilis was born in a boat.
His mother was trying to make it from her home on the island of Ammouliani only a mile across the Aegean to the mainland, but she was too late.
And so a boy came into this world at sea, and there was only one life he was fated to live.
Today, tall and bronzed, like a warrior from the legions of Alexander the Great, Vassilis is at the wheel of a speedboat thrumming across the sparkling seas off the Mount Athos peninsula in north-eastern Greece.
As we fly along like a turbo-charged bronco, dolphins breach the surface and plunge below, and then a sea turtle, almost 5ft long, slides alongside.
Vassilis's eyes instinctively scan the water - and then he shouts with delight. The man who has sailed these waters all his life hasn't seen a turtle here in 25 years.
Vassilis is the boatman at the Eagles Palace, a long-established family hotel designed to look a little like one of the many monasteries further along the coast.
It's 90 minutes' drive from the airport at Thessaloniki along a road that meanders through olive groves and low-lying wooded valleys into a corner of Greece that's a world away from the fleshpots of the party islands far to the south. We were afforded the warmest of welcomes.
Set on tumbling levels down to its own beach, the hotel is a labyrinth of terrace restaurants (serving food and wine from local farms, vineyards and its very own olive grove), cooling courtyards, beach bars and a large saltwater pool.
The beach itself shelves gently into water, which is astonishingly clear because the Aegean sweeps into the bay and then out again every 20 minutes.
There is a kids' club, probably more suited to younger children than our son, Mike, 11, and daughter Alice, seven.
Pavlos is the man if you want to take out a sea kayak or do some light paddle-boarding or more strenuous mountain-biking.
Unlike most dudes you meet at a watersports hut, he's got an MBA from New York — oh, and he runs ultra-marathons, too. He does a brilliant job of shepherding Mike on his first sea kayak outing, helping him steer his boat nimbly around rocks jutting from the sea bed.
Pavlos has just introduced a specialist course for children, which will see them developing their skills on the water as the week goes on.
If Pavlos is the urbane young face of adventure sports, Mr Dinos, the watersports supremo, is the salty sea dog who looks as though he might have sailed in his youth with Odysseus. Crinkly blue eyes smile out from under his weather-beaten cap as he waves his walnut arm and asks: 'What will it be today?'
Somewhat more costly adrenaline watersports include parasailing (70 euros for two people for ten minutes) and jet-skiing (50 euros for quarter of an hour). But, hey, you're on holiday.
While Alice yells to go faster on the jet ski, Mike chooses the more sedate but vertiginous thrills of parasailing.
As he is winched up into the piercing blue sky attached to a harness in front of his nervous mum, his face cracks into a huge grin and, despite his legs jiggling around like a demented frog, he calls it the 'best fun ever'.
This area of Greece is known for its astonishing panoply of monasteries.
Prince Charles is a regular visitor, spending time in the company of the monks in the Simonos Petras monastery, which crouches on top of a rock high above the sea.
Such is said to be Charles's fascination with the Greek Orthodox religion that he has installed Byzantine art in his Highgrove garden. Far above the twinkling domes, on the peak of Mount Athos itself, sits a stone building.
Who would build a chapel on top of a mountain 6,000ft high?, I wonder out loud.
'They have faith,' Vassilis tells me.
Then he recounts the story of the monk who tumbled over a cliff and plunged 150 metres. Surely, his fellows thought, he is dead. But he dusted himself off and trundled back up the hill. Miraculous, you might say.
One morning, Pavlos takes us boys on bikes into the town of Ouranoupoli - where an ancient watchtower stands sentinel above seafront tavernas - then we head out along a gravel track. Here, trees heavy with wild figs strain over the roadside and olive trees offer dappled corners of shade.
And at the end of the path? A monastery which is probably 10th-century, and the first of all those built along this peninsula.
It is a reminder of the history that seeps through the earth in this land — and courses through the veins of Vassilis and the other descendants of the ancients who shaped this Greek marvel.
First published in the Mail on Sunday - July 2015
More articles below...
Not quite what you're looking for?
We can easily customise an offer to suit your exact requirements