Maria Elena Villas — Hotel in Municipality of Pylos and Nestor

Stunning views across olive groves to the sea. ||||Good sized pool and deck area with sun loungers/sun canopies -an excellent place to enjoy the views, relax and read a book. Pool filter was not on all the time - the water was crystal clear, but there were often bugs etc. in the pool. Otherwise the pool was great.||||The villas are surrounded by olive trees in a very peaceful location. Except for the other Zeus villa the nearest villa was around 50m away. 2 nights there were people talking outside/playing music until late at night. If you closed the windows (and put air conditioning on) you could not hear them. (Air conditioning is in bedrooms only.)||||It is around 5 mins walk to the beach down a dirt track through the olives - there are a few traveras near the beach - but we found the restaurants in the main town (10 mins car drive) to server better food.||||The apartments have balconies on all sides so you can be in shade or sun. The living room/kitchen is a good size. Kitchen has basic kettle, saucepans, plates etc but the cooker is only slightly bigger than the average microwave so a bit limiting if you wanted to stay in and cook.||||Zeus Villas consists of 2 villas divided into 4 apartments. We stayed in the top floor of the "upper house". I understand the other apartments have identical layouts, but this probably has the best views and catches more breeze. (For booking information: No.1 - bottom floor, lower villa; No. 2 - top floor, lower villa; No. 3 - upper floor, upper villa; No. 4 - lower floor, upper villa).||||We booked through Simply Travel and were very happy with the service provided in Greece. The rep. met us and the airport and helped us with car hire and visited later in the day to give some more advice. She was on call if we needed any help. They provided a cot and high chair, a welcome pack with some basic foods, milk and wine, and a folder with useful information about places to visit. Local supermarket was not open on Sundays - so the welcome pack was particularly welcome!||||Car hire was included with the package. We opted to upgrade to a grade D (£90 - Renault Megane) as we had 4 + baby. When we arrived they offered to give us a mini-van. While the extra space may have been better for those in the back of the car I am glad we did not get the bigger car with the narrow roads.||||I would advise you to check what accident excess is included with the car insurance before you get to Greece. We were told it at the airport by Europcar is usually €700. Our rep. said someone had an accident (not their fault) and still had to pay the excess. We paid an extra €100 (bartered down from €120!) to reduce the excess to €50. We were not provided with any paperwork talking about excess so I am not sure if this was the Europcar sales person earning some extra money...

This is the second time we have stayed at these Villas and would return again. They are set in a lovely peaceful location and are in a good situation for visiting local areas of interest such as Koroni, Methoni, Pylos and Ancient Messene to name a few (recommend all). The only thing that people may not expect is that the villas are reached via an unmade, gravelly single track lane - very narrow but not a problem to drive up.||||We stayed in July and while the poster below mentions ongoing building work at the "youth hostel" - which is merely a medium sized apartment block with families staying there. The work was not building work but landscaping of the garden and pool area - there was no heavy machinery involved so please don't let these comments put you off. We were not bothered by any excessive noise of building work, nor any excessive noise of music in the evenings. Although about 100mtrs from the Zeus these apartments don't impose or invade the privacy of the villas. ||||The kitchen facilities are adequate for preparing snacks (after all you don't want to spend your holiday cooking!). Although there is no toaster provided - the mini oven can be operated as a grill for doing toast. There is a toasted sandwich maker provided. The apartments are excellent, the air conditioning (which is included in the price) is invaluable. Facilities in Greece are generally quite basic but these apartments are more than adequate for an enjoyable, relaxing holiday.||||There are some very nice restaurants locally - 2 or 3 within walking distance and many more choices in nearby Koroni which is approximately 10 mins by car.||||We found the rep to be helpful when all power went off in our villa - the owner arrived and the problem was rectified within 15 minutes of us ringing the rep. ||||Apart from the main Zaga/Memi beach (you can hire sunbeds here) there are some lovely unspoilt beaches in the area our favourite was 10 minutes from Koroni and was reached by a small track (Aghia Triada ssshh not sure I should be telling everyone this!!) - it was always very quiet but has no facilities except a tap at the top of the track which is handy for rinsing your feet on the...

Having visited Koroni 17 years before as a teenager I wasn't sure what to expect. I wasn't dissapointed. It is still unspoilt and friendly.||Zeus Villas were well layed out with basic but more than adequate kitchen and living accomodations. A fantastic terrace all the way round meant far reaching views, shade and sun all day and lovely private outside space.||The location is a distance from Koroni town but we walked in several times no problem with a six year old and an eight year old, it took about 40mins. Driving was also easy and quick with plenty of parking.||The supermarkets were easy to find and stocked a good selection of products so no problems there.||There were three taverna's within short walking distance of the villa, the nearest (down track and turn left) was very cheap, friendly and the food was lovely - but early in the season there was limited choice. We all managed to eat for under 20 euro's for four of us.||Car hire was fine, we had a Micra which was good as the roads are narrow and very potholed in places. Lots of fantastic places to visit. Really didn't want to go home!||Only negative was that the pool was so deep unless your children were very confident swimmers it was a bit scary, not much of a shallow end.||If it's a quiet sightseeing holiday in the countryside you like, then I would certainly...