Tours in Chania

Chania is the prettiest town in Crete and knows it. The Venetian harbour curves round to an Egyptian lighthouse built in the 1830s, and behind it the old town runs back in a tangle of Venetian, Ottoman and Jewish quarters — the Kucuk Hasan mosque on the waterfront, the covered market in a cross-shaped hall of 1913, the arsenali where galleys were built, and the Etz Hayyim synagogue tucked into a lane. Under all of it lies Kydonia, a Minoan town still being excavated between the houses. The White Mountains rise behind, holding snow into June, and the Akrotiri peninsula closes the bay to the north. West along the coast are Balos and Gramvousa, and southwest, over the mountains, the pink sand at Elafonissi.

Chania is the base for the west of the island and the walking. The Samaria gorge starts at Omalos, forty minutes up the mountain, and is walked downhill sixteen kilometres to Agia Roumeli with a boat out — the classic Cretan day, and a hard one. Balos is reached by boat from Kissamos or by a rough track and a descent on foot; Elafonissi by road in an hour and a half. Boat trips run along the Rodopos peninsula to Menies, which has no road at all. In town it is the harbour and the quarters on foot, the market, cooking classes, and the wineries and olive mills of the Apokoronas villages inland.

Practical. Season runs May to October; Samaria opens in May and closes in mid-October and in heavy rain, and it is a five to seven hour walk downhill that leaves most people's knees complaining the next day. Book the gorge for early in your stay rather than late. The old town is stone, uneven and closed to cars — park in the new town and walk in. Harbour restaurants charge for the view; two streets back is half the price. A hire car is needed for the west of the island. Chania airport is on Akrotiri, twenty minutes out, and the port at Souda is where the overnight ferry from Piraeus arrives.