Things to do in Heraklion

A walled city that still works

Heraklion is the capital of Crete and its largest city, and it was never laid out for visitors. Four and a half centuries of Venetian rule left the walls, a circuit of seven bastions still almost complete. The city feeds itself first and the traveller second.

Inside the walls the set pieces stand close together.

• Koules — the Venetian sea fort closing the old harbour.
• The Morosini fountain — four lions and a basin finished in 1628, in the middle of town.
• Odos 1866 — the market street, named for the year of the great revolt.
• The Archaeological Museum — the Phaistos disc, the snake goddesses, the bull-leaping frescoes.
• The walls — a long walk on top, with the grave of Nikos Kazantzakis on the Martinengo bastion.

Where the days go from here

Knossos is five kilometres south, and the museum in town holds what the palace no longer does. Doing both in one morning, in that order, is the standard move. Most other days run east.

• Lasithi — the plateau, the windmill frames and the Dikteon cave, an hour or so inland.
• Spinalonga and Elounda — the fortress island that served as a leper colony until 1957, an hour east.
• Dia and Chrissi — an island an hour out of the harbour, and a sandbar reached from Ierapetra in the south.
• Matala — the cliff caves the sixties filled, an hour and a half over the hills.
• Peza and Archanes — wine villages twenty minutes south, with olive mills and pottery in the same valley.

West-coast days are sold from here too, and they are long. Pick-up for Samaria or Elafonissi comes before six, and the longest versions run past sixteen hours. If those are the priority, sleep further west.

Practical

• Knossos hours. There is almost no shade, and gypsum goes slippery in rain. Eight in the morning is a different site from eleven, when the coaches land.
• One ticket. A combined ticket covers the palace and the museum for less than the two bought apart.
• Buses. City buses to Knossos leave the centre every twenty minutes for about the price of a coffee.
• No beach. Nothing in the city itself is worth swimming. Amoudara is twenty minutes west.
• Ferries. Overnight boats run to Piraeus and fast ones to Santorini, which makes this the easiest place on Crete to leave from.
• Eating. The lanes off the market feed locals and price accordingly.
• Summer. July and August are hot, dusty and loud with traffic. The pedestrian streets after dark are the payoff.