Heraklion is worth a day. The annoying part is the traffic and the parking, so go early, park once, and walk everywhere after that. It is about an hour and a quarter from us.
The house is the green pin. Tap a pin to jump to its entry.
The Phaistos Disc is here, along with the Minoan frescoes and the great mass of what has come out of the ground across Crete, laid out in order. The Roman rooms connect directly to what you will have seen at Gortyna. Give it a couple of hours. Map →
Fascinating, and it picks up exactly where the archaeological museum stops. On the ground floor there is a model of the city at the height of Venetian rule, which is worth looking at before you walk out into the old town. Map →
On the seafront, and the one to take children to when they have had enough of ruins. Map →
The lion fountain in the middle of the old town, and the place everything else in the centre is measured from. Map →
A minute's walk from the fountain. The big Venetian administrative building, now the city hall, where Antigoni and I were married in a small civil ceremony. Map →
Kazantzakis is buried on the Martinengo bastion, which is also a way up onto the Venetian walls to look back over the city. His epitaph is carved on the stone, the famous one about hoping for nothing and fearing nothing. Map →
In the village his family came from, east of the road to Heraklion. Worth it if you have read him, less so if you have not. Map →
A large waterpark east of Heraklion. It is a full day and it is a lot, but it does exactly what it says and there are holidays where that is what everybody needs. Map →
One day is enough for the two museums and the old town. Two if you want to add the waterpark, and by then you are really planning two separate trips. Check availability →