why the Greek island is a perfect escape

Greek Odyssey: view of the coast at Mochlos. Photo: Georgios Tsichlis/Alamy

Sometimes, when you're traveling, you arrive somewhere so ridiculously picturesque, such a dictionary definition of what you expect the country to look like, that you half suspect it was built as a movie set, or is just for tourists' Disneyfied'.

This is the feeling I get when I walk to the small, horseshoe-shaped bay at Mochlos, Crete. Six restaurants, all with cobalt chairs, whitewashed tables and blackboards, offer gyros and freshly caught fish. On the narrow strip of stones that fringe the low sea wall, a handful of locals ...