Tours in Heraklion

Heraklion is the capital of Crete and a working city of two hundred thousand people rather than a resort, which is the first thing to know about it. The Venetians ran it for four centuries and left the walls — still almost complete, four kilometres of them, with Nikos Kazantzakis buried on the Martinengo bastion under an epitaph about hoping for nothing and fearing nothing — along with the Koules fortress guarding the old harbour and the Morosini lion fountain in the middle of town. Five kilometres south lies Knossos, the largest Minoan palace, rebuilt in concrete by Arthur Evans in a reconstruction archaeologists still argue about. The Archaeological Museum in the centre holds what Knossos no longer does: the bull-leaping frescoes, the snake goddesses, the Phaistos disc. Together they are the reason most people come.

Knossos and the museum are the fixed pair and are best done in that order, on a combined ticket, ideally in one morning. Beyond them, Heraklion is the island's transport hub — the airport, the ferry port and the highway all meet here — which makes it the base for days out in every direction: the Lasithi plateau and the Dikteon cave, Spinalonga and the Elounda coast, the wine estates at Peza and Archanes twenty minutes south, and the Cretaquarium at Gournes. In the city itself there is the walled centre on foot, the market street of 1866, and a food scene that is better and cheaper than the resorts, because it feeds locals.

Practical. Knossos has almost no shade and the marble and gypsum go slippery in rain and blinding in sun — first entry at eight is a different visit from eleven, when the coaches arrive. The combined Knossos and museum ticket saves money and time. Summer in the city is hot and dusty and there is no beach worth the name in Heraklion itself; Amoudara is twenty minutes west. The port serves overnight ferries to Piraeus and fast boats to Santorini, which makes island-hopping easy from here. Buses to Knossos run every twenty minutes from the centre for the price of a coffee. Tavernas in the market streets are half the price of the harbour.