Sightseeing in Rethymno

Rethymno is Crete's third city and arguably its best preserved: the Venetian old town survives here almost block by block. Above the little harbour with its lighthouse rises the Fortezza, a late sixteenth-century citadel that ranks among the largest the Venetians ever built; inside are bastions, powder magazines and the dome of the Sultan Ibrahim mosque left over from Ottoman times. Down in the lanes the two eras keep talking to each other — the Rimondi fountain with its lion heads, the Venetian loggia, the Neratze minaret rising over a former church, and timber-framed balconies jutting above carved stone doorways. You can walk all of it in a couple of hours, and a sandy beach starts at the promenade and runs for thirteen kilometres east.

Rethymno also happens to be the right place to see the island in both directions. West, it is an hour to Chania with its harbour and Egyptian lighthouse. East, some eighty kilometres bring you to Knossos, the palace of the Minoans with Evans's famous reconstructions, and to Heraklion's archaeological museum, home of the original frescoes and the Phaistos Disc. A separate adventure is the day trip to Santorini: an early transfer to Heraklion's port, a ferry across the Aegean, a day on the caldera between Fira and Oia, and a late return.

In the evening the town shows itself from the water and at the table. The catamaran leaves the Venetian harbour for a sunset run beneath the Fortezza walls. A Cretan night in a mountain taverna means lyra music, circle dances and raki without the tourist gloss, while tasting trips through the villages explain what local cooking stands on — indigenous grape varieties and first-press olive oil.