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3 cities
Region · Ilhas
Creta
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
Destinations
1 destination in Creta
Cities
3 cities in Creta in the guide
Creta
Capital
Heraclião
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.
Creta
Chania
Chania is the second city of Creta and the most beautiful place to stay: the crescent-shaped Venetian harbour, with the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater and the old mosque of the janissaries on the waterfront, is the centre of an old town of narrow lanes, Venetian and Ottoman houses, neighbourhoods such as Topanas and Splantzia and the Etz Hayyim synagogue. It is the base for the west of the island: the Samaria Gorge, the beaches of Elafonisi, Balos and Falasarna, and the Akrotiri peninsula, with monasteries and the beach of Stavros.
Creta
Rethymno
Rethymno lies halfway between Heraclião and Chania, on the north coast of Crete. The old town, at the foot of the Fortezza veneziana of 1573, is the best preserved on the island: stone lanes, fountains and Venetian portals, Ottoman minarets and a small harbour with a lighthouse. East of the centre a several-kilometre sandy beach begins, with resort hotels. In the surroundings are the monastery of Arkadi, a symbol of Cretan resistance, and, to the south, the palm grove and the beach of Preveli.