Creta · Greece Capital
In the destination Creta.
In the photo: Fortaleza de Koules
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
The city
Capital and largest city of Crete, Heraclião (Heraklion) is the gateway to the island, with the busiest airport and the ferry port of Pireu. The centre is surrounded by 16th-century Venetian walls, and the fortress of Koules guards the entrance to the old harbour. Five kilometres away is the Palácio de Cnossos, and in the centre the Museu Arqueológico houses what was found there. Between Praça dos Leões and the rua 1866 market, the city is noisy and lively, less tidy than Chania and Rethymno, but it is the place you depart from for the rest of the island.
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The local experience
The largest palace of the Minoan civilization, 5 km from Heraclião, with a central courtyard, throne room, staircases and Arthur Evans's reconstructions from the early 20th century.
The main museum of the Minoan civilization, housing the frescoes from Cnossos, the Phaistos Disc, the snake-goddess figurines and the rhyton shaped like a bull's head.
The Venetian fortress guarding the entrance to Heraclião’s old harbour, built between 1523 and 1540, with vaulted rooms and a terrace overlooking the city and the sea.
The 16th-century Venetian walls that encircle central Heraclião, over 4 km long with seven bastions. The tomb of the writer Nikos Kazantzakis is on the Martinengo bastion.
The centre of Heraclião: the praça da fonte veneziana dos quatro leões, from 1628, with the Loggia beside it and rua 1866, the market street, which descends to praça Kornarou.
The cathedral of Heraclião, dedicated to São Menas, the city’s patron, built between 1862 and 1895 and one of the largest in Greece, next to the older church of Agios Minas from 1735.
Museum that tells the history of Crete from the Byzantine era to the 20th century, with the only paintings by El Greco on the island, the model of Venetian Cândia and the room of Nikos Kazantzakis.
The church of São Tito, the first bishop of Crete, rebuilt in 1869 as a mosque and returned to Orthodox worship in 1925, where the saint’s skull is kept; next to it, the Loggia veneziana.
University of Crete museum about the nature of the eastern Mediterranean, in a former power company building on the seafront, with dioramas, a life‑size prehistoric elephant and an earthquake simulator.
Public aquarium in Gournes, about 15 km from Heracliion, with dozens of tanks dedicated to Mediterranean species, from sharks and rays to seahorses and jellyfish.
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