Olive Green Hotel
Olive Green Hotel is a 48-room smart boutique hotel in the centre of Heraklion, two minutes’ walk from the Archaeological Museum, converted in 2016 from an empty early-1960s building and wired around KNX controls and in-room tablets. It holds 4.7 out of 5 across 922 Tripadvisor reviews, second of 47 hotels in Heraklion, with 8.7 out of 10 on Booking.com across 872, where location scores 9.5. Our verdict lands at 8.6 out of 10: the best-placed city hotel we have reviewed in Heraklion, and the technology is real even if the green branding runs ahead of the evidence. We earn a commission if you book through the links on this page, which never decides what we write.
Hotel information
| Hotel | Olive Green Hotel |
|---|---|
| Address | Meramvellou & Idomeneos 22, Heraklion |
| Type | Hotels |
| Style | Smart boutique city hotel, a 2016 conversion of a 1960s block, all ages |
| Signature | KNX building controls and an in-room tablet running the hotel's own guide app |
| Keys | 48 rooms over 6 floors and no suites, from 18 sqm Classic to 33 sqm Club Elite |
| Dining | Liotrivi breakfast room in a modern olive press; 626 all-day lounge |
| Location | 2 minutes to the Archaeological Museum, 7 to the bus station, 11 to the port |
| Nearest airport | Heraklion (HER), about 6.5 km, 8 to 10 minutes |
| Booking.com rating | 8.7/10 (872 reviews) |
| Tripadvisor rating | 4.7/5 (922 reviews) |
| CreteLocals score | 8.6/10 · read the verdict |
Booking.com and Tripadvisor scores checked on September 22, 2026.
Location
Olive Green Hotel is located at Meramvellou & Idomeneos 22, Heraklion, in Heraklion Town. The map below shows the exact spot; Google Maps and Waze give turn-by-turn directions.
Who Olive Green suits, and who should skip it
Olive Green suits travellers who want to walk to the museum, the harbour, the bus station and the port, and who enjoy a room they can run from a tablet. Skip it if you need a pool, a rooftop bar or a beach, if you are a light sleeper who cannot request a high floor, or if you are arriving by car without checking the parking arrangement first. The lists below come from recurring themes across its 922 Tripadvisor reviews and 872 Booking.com reviews.
Advantages
- Location is the standout: 4.9 on Tripadvisor and 9.5 on Booking, with the Archaeological Museum 2 minutes away and the Venetian harbour 6 to 8
- Second of 47 hotels in Heraklion on Tripadvisor, with 742 of 922 reviews marked excellent
- Cleanliness 4.9, described by one guest as top three of anywhere they have stayed
- The smart room is genuine: a Samsung tablet running the hotel’s own guide app for lights, climate and room service, plus e-check-in and KNX controls, and it leads Tripadvisor’s own list of what guests mention
- Breakfast is made from scratch with Cretan products, handmade bread, sarikopites, graviera from Psiloritis and a daily olive oil tasting
- The 626 all-day lounge spills onto the pavement under the park trees and stays open to around midnight
Disadvantages
- Street and nightlife noise is the single biggest complaint, with motorbikes reported until 1am in street-facing lower rooms; guests advise earplugs or a high floor
- Sound also carries between rooms, including televisions, voices and shower cubicles
- Parking is off site and paid: the hotel has a deal at a nearby garage for roughly 7 to 13 euros a day against a 20 to 24.50 walk-up rate, but guests must say they are hotel guests, and one was quoted the full price on arrival
- Entry-level Classic rooms are 18 sqm, and some bathroom layouts scatter the basin, toilet and shower across corners
- The breakfast room is in the basement, a recurring niggle even among positive reviews
- No pool, no rooftop bar and no beach: the group’s rooftop venues are nearby sister sites, not on the premises
The rooms: 48 keys over 6 floors, and the floor matters
Olive Green runs 48 rooms over 6 floors, from 5 Classic rooms of 18 sqm on the first floor to 5 OG Club Elite rooms of 29 to 33 sqm on the sixth with verandas and sunloungers, with Executive and Deluxe categories of 22 to 27 sqm in between.
Ask for a high floor away from the street. The noise complaints are strongly floor-dependent: guests on the fifth floor report the double glazing keeping the room quiet, while street-facing lower rooms hear the scooters. Doubles are two singles pushed together, so say if you want a king, and note there are no adapted rooms, though lifts and a street ramp exist.
The smart room, the olive press and the green claims
The technology is the real differentiator: the building runs on the KNX control standard, each room has a tablet running the hotel’s own guide app for lights, climate, television and room service, and check-in and check-out can both be done online.
Downstairs, breakfast is served in Liotrivi, styled as a modern olive press with a pass through to the kitchen, where everything is cooked in olive oil and made from scratch; the daily extra-virgin tasting is a nice touch that costs nothing. The 626 lounge handles the rest of the day until around midnight, with Cretan cooking alongside burgers and pizza, and pavement tables under the trees of the square.
The sustainability positioning needs a caveat. Solar panels, a building management system, heavy insulation and LED lighting are all real and documented. But the hotel describes itself as covering most of its energy needs from within while its own hotel page says the panels generate only part of it, and there is no certification behind it: the hotel is absent from the Green Key Greece member list, and Booking.com records no sustainability certification for it at all, only the hotel’s own statement that a recycling policy is followed. Guests almost never mention the green features, and one audited them directly and reported printed menus, plastic water bottles and clingfilm. Treat the smart room as the reason to book and the eco label as marketing.
How to get there
Olive Green sits at Meramvellou and Idomeneos 22 in central Heraklion, about 6.5 km from Heraklion airport (HER), 8 to 10 minutes by road, with Knossos 6.7 km south.
Three transport options cover the trip, and each fits a different stay. A taxi is the obvious arrival and the hotel quotes a 20 euro airport transfer; our guide to taxi and airport transfer services in Crete lists the operators and typical prices. A hire car is worth it only for touring, and if you bring one, confirm the discounted garage rate at reception before you park; our car rental in Crete page compares local rates. The KTEL bus station is 7 minutes on foot and the ferry port 11, which makes this a strong base for island travel without a car.
The Crete Locals review
Olive Green earns an 8.6 on the strength of two things that are hard to buy: an address and a habit of service. Second of 47 hotels in Heraklion, 742 of 922 reviews marked excellent, cleanliness at 4.9, and a location that puts the Archaeological Museum two minutes from the door and the bus station seven. Staff score 9.2 on Booking and the reviews name individuals, hand out Easter treats and box up breakfast for early flights.
For a 48-room conversion of a 1960s block, the smart-building story is unusually substantial. KNX controls, an in-room tablet running the hotel’s own app, online check-in and a headboard panel of QR codes pointing at Cretan trails and gorges. It does not always work, and guests say so: a tablet with the wrong charger, air conditioning stuck on heat in 27 degrees. The green story is weaker. The systems exist, but the self-sufficiency claim contradicts the hotel’s own page, no certification stands behind it, and the one guest who checked came back with plastic bottles and clingfilm.
The honest weakness is noise, and it is addressable. Heraklion’s nightlife runs late and the lower street-facing rooms hear all of it, while fifth-floor guests call the same hotel perfectly quiet. Sound carries between rooms too. Book high, book away from the street, and the single most common complaint mostly disappears.
Book Olive Green as a two or three night city stay, ideally in April, May, September or October: a Deluxe or Club Elite room on the fifth or sixth floor, breakfast unhurried in the basement olive press, the museum before the coaches and dinner at a pavement table. Expect from about 97 euros a night in low season and 156 upwards in peak August, breakfast included, with the guest discount of 20 per cent on food at 626 worth using.
