Explore Crete

Why visit Crete

Crete is the largest Greek island and probably the most rewarding — a country-sized destination where you can be at a 4,000-year-old Minoan palace at breakfast, a UNESCO-listed gorge at lunch, and a turquoise-water white-sand beach by sunset. The most famous archaeological site is Knossos near Heraklion (the ceremonial centre of the Bronze Age Minoan civilisation), but Phaistos, Malia, and Zakros offer equally interesting Minoan remains without the crowds. The Samariá Gorge in the southwest is one of the longest in Europe at 16 km, a brilliantly atmospheric 6-7 hour hike from White Mountain pine forests down to the Libyan Sea. Pink-sand Elafonissi and Balos lagoons in the far west, the Venetian harbour of Chania (one of the most beautiful in the Mediterranean), Heraklion's archaeological museum (some of the finest collections in Greece), and the moving former leper colony of Spinalonga island (the setting of Victoria Hislop's novel The Island) round out the headline list. Cretan food is its own thing: dakos rusks, lamb baked in honey, snails in rosemary, the lethal local raki (tsikoudia), and dense local wines from Heraklion and Sitia.