I returned in search of the true Greece. And found it

When Julie Myerson went to Kythera 15 years ago she was unimpressed. This time she went to Crete, with three children in tow, and fell in love with it

Long ago, when I had no children or mortgage and when a pair of shocking pink espadrilles lasted a whole summer, my Greek boyfriend took me to the island of Kythera. We landed at the port and then hitched a lift to a lonely hamlet on the edge of a bay. He wanted to look up an old friend, an elderly fisherman, who greeted us volubly with ouzo and offered us a room.

It was at the back of his hut cum cafeneion, next to the makeshift lavatory - it was hot, smelly, shrill with mosquitos, the wall spotted with the brownish stains of their deaths. When I complained, my boyfriend laughed and told me this was the "true Greece", the part of the island that holidaymakers say they long to find and never do. No shops, no discos, barely a Vespa. Just the scritch-scritch of crickets in the brush, the spookily perfect bareness of long white beaches.

Spooky, yes. Perfect, no. Sunburned, unwashed and more or less unfed, the boyfriend and I tried to like each other. But I spoke no Greek, couldn't sleep for the silence, itched and longed for a shower. Black-clad women stared at my legs and the air pulsed, even 40 years on, with memories of war and occupation. He and I fought, I got sick and then I got out of the place and the relationship.

But 15 years on, with three children and a far more ruthless standard of personal and parental hygiene, I find myself hankering for Greece. The true Greece. My first two novels are set in Nottingham or south London, so with the third, I wanted to branch out. I have memories of a parched, unfriendly place. "I need to do some research," I announce to the family. But Jonathan refuses to go on some "tourist beach holiday" and I haven't time to find a villa and book flights. Then a friend tells me about Pure Crete, a company that offers a secluded package. "No discos," says the friend, "just mountains and deserted beaches and nothing else. Teenagers would hate it."

And that is all the enticement I need. One moment, I'm holding Pure Crete's brochure in my hand, and the next, our hired car is spinning its wheels on the yellow, dusty, thyme-scented track that spirals, roughly parallel to the sea, up to Katerina's House. Katerina's is a huge, lavish-but-traditional apartment: stone walls wide as bear hugs, butter-coloured flagged floor, bedrooms beamed and panelled in local pine. Hot water is plentiful enough to rinse sand from between small buttocks whenever the need arises, and plumbing is, well, pretty sophisticated for Greece. Best of all are the wide, smooth balconies, lapping the house like an extra, outdoor layer of rooms. Lizards zig-zag up through cracks in the stone, flick in and out of the red-violet bougainvillaea which frames the solid, dazed blueness of Souda bay, the largest natural harbour in the Mediterranean.

The company rents out local, traditional houses and farms in and around Megala Chorafia, a village nestling in the foothills of the White Mountains. Founder Geraint Davies was working in marketing in the UK when he flew out to visit his friend Elizabeth, who had married a Cretan and was running the family taverna.

"On the other side of Crete," says Davies, "huge, ugly hotels were being built and they'd be owned by some big man in Athens who'd cream off all the profits." Davies saw the potential for encouraging locals to do up their own, dilapidated properties and rent them out. The company loans money to help restore the old buildings to their original, functioning simplicity. The majority of the profit goes straight back into the community. "That, and the tavernas, all get nice steady business," says Davies, "who can complain?'

The first two days are hot and sunny and we find a stretch of virtually empty beach. Jonathan and I read our paperbacks in the dark blue shade of the pine trees while the children hover, stiff with excitement, at the water's edge, unable to believe in a sea that is neither choppy, cold nor Suffolk-grey. We lunch in a taverna, reassuringly full of Greeks, and Chloe, aged five, discovers the chewy, oily joys of fresh octopus.

But on the third night, I wake to hear shutters banging. By morning, the sky is the colour of mud and the blue bay frilled with waves. "It'll blow over," says the rep. So we go to the beach anyway and sit gloomily in our jumpers while the children dig next to the flapping, folded-down umbrellas and a bunch of skinny, custard-coloured dogs chase and mount each other, snarling. We decide to drive towards the mountains at the centre of the island. We pass whitewashed tree trunks, tiny churches, memorials to saints at the side of the road and little knots of sheep. Half-an-hour later, Raphael, aged four, is asleep and we're high up where the air is cool and still. We drive into a village with houses, chickens, but not a soul in sight, and only the lonely ding-ding of goat bells.

There's a small shack with blue painted tables and chairs. and stacks of red plastic Amstel and Fanta crates. Music from a radio. Raphael cries at being woken up, the seat belt imprinted on his face. "Is it a cafe?" I whisper to Jonathan. But before he can answer, a white-haired man in black leather knee boots and a fringed head-dress emerges, nodding and beckoning to us. "Are you Father Christmas?" Raphael demands, confused by the boots. He replies in Greek and then admires Raphael's plastic Batman figure with the detachable cuffs and wings. "It all comes off," says Raphael.

The man serves us thick, strong coffee, pink ice cream in plastic cartons for the children. The sun comes out, so it is suddenly impossibly hot, and we pull off our jumpers. A little girl, who has wrists scabbed with eczema, comes over to play. The man brings us a salad of splashy red tomatoes, olives, thick chunks of glassy cucumber and feta. As each new pleasure is produced, he sits down solemnly to watch us eat, nodding and smiling when we do.

The children and the little girl make friends and climb a bank of rubbish. Afterwards we walk down the winding road of the village - still deserted - Jacob, aged seven, counts the stray cats and we try to decode the war memorial.

That night we drive to Chania for supper and find restaurants with plastic, stapled-on tablecloths and garish colour photos of burger and chips, pizza and chips, spaghetti and chips. Finally we settle for the only photo-free restaurant. Raphael stuffs a breadstick in his mouth and falls asleep with his chin in the butter. Chloe says she'll eat "anything with legs". Jacob wants to hear the legend of the Minotaur one more time. The waiter seems to think we haven't ordered enough. We decide to stick to village tavernas in future.

Elizabeth (co-founder of Pure Crete) undoubtedly runs the best local taverna, which is a tiny, windswept arrangement of tables with a view of shivery-peaked mountains. She and husband Giorgio cook good, traditional Cretan food and chat to the customers. The only drawback is that the latter are British almost to a man, pink from the beach, self-conscious in their holiday chinos. ('I was wondering where they all were," says Jonathan). There are teachers and doctors and accountants, nice-mannered teenaged boys, hearty, affectionate elderly couples. "They come ever year at the same time to walk and admire the wild flowers," Elizabeth tells us.

Sitting there on our last night, the children scream with happiness as a flock of sheep diverse as human beings - fat, thin, slow, fast, black, white, some bleating anxiously - gallop past within touching distance of our table and disappear round the corner. Just as Raphael has shouted "bye" and the bells have died away, a forgotten black one tears past, ears flattened, kicking dust into our salad.

The holiday is a big success. Apart from the heart-sinking four-hour delay at Chania airport on the way back there have been no low points. And the high points? For Jacob? "Learning backgammon and asking for the board in Greek." Raphael? "The sheep, especially the black one." Chloe? "Eating things with legs." Jonathan? "I'll let you know."

And for me, the new "true Greece" has superimposed itself over the old "true" one. Now, when I dive into the pictures in my head, I am sitting in a leafy square surrounded by old men and babies sucking dummies, a sweaty-headed child of my own asleep on my lap. Or I'm sipping aromatic, cloudy ouzo and wondering why there are always so many electrical shops. Or looking at rows and rows of vacuum cleaners, the AEG and Coca-Cola signs, the Mobil petrol station and the mini-market, the shops selling raffia mats and Nivea lotion, the signs saying Cutty Shark Restaurant - Dancing, Disco, Hamburger, Nescafe, English Toasts.

crete fact file

Packages

Pure Crete (Tel: 0181 760 0879) has houses and converted farm buildings in the foothills of the White Mountains in western Crete. Prices for an "A" category property for two people are around pounds 350 per person, including chartered flights. They are also running three tours next spring, to explore the wild flowers of the island.

A less upmarket operator, Kosmar (0181 368 6833) also have self-catering properties in Crete, and offer free car- hire to parties of four or more who book at selected properties in Aghios Nikolaos or Elounda before the end of January.

Books

'Landscapes of Western Crete' (Sunflower Books) by Jonnie Godfrey and Eliz Karslake, and 'Crete off the Beaten Track' (Cicerone Press, Cumbria) by Bruce and Naomi Caughey.