Villages, museums and a day in the hills

Vori

A genuinely beautiful village a quarter of an hour north of us, with restored stone houses and a square worth sitting in. It is also home to the Museum of Cretan Ethnology, which is small, on two floors, and better than its size suggests: everyday Cretan life laid out by theme, from food and weaving to transport and social organisation. An hour is about right. It won the European Museum of the Year award in 1992.

There is no parking at the museum itself. Follow the signs to the free parking area at the south end of the village. Map →

• No parking at the museum
• Free parking at the south end of the village
• Cash only

Magarikari

Up in the foothills north of the valley. This is a working village rather than a village arranged for visitors, which is the point of going. There is a small folk museum with farm tools, household things and the ordinary contents of a Cretan house from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The village was destroyed during the occupation, in the reprisals of August 1944, and rebuilt afterwards. Map →

Zaros and the lake

Zaros is the water village: it is the name on half the water bottles in Crete, bottled from the springs here. Above the village there is a small lake ringed with plane trees, with a restaurant beside it that serves trout raised in the tanks next door. You can walk around the water in fifteen minutes, and from the same spot a path heads up into the Rouvas gorge, which is a serious walk if you want one and a pleasant half hour if you do not.

It works well on a hot day. Phaistos and Gortyna in the middle of a July afternoon are hard going, whereas Zaros is up in the hills with shade and running water and is fine at any hour. Map →

See also: Zaros Lake Restaurant

Zaros Lake Restaurant

Beside the lake above Zaros, serving trout raised in the tanks next door. Shade, running water and a table under the plane trees, which on a hot day is the whole point of driving up. Map →

See also: Zaros and the lake

Sivas and Kamilari

The two villages closest to us are worth a wander in their own right. Sivas is a five-minute walk downhill and has three tavernas, a shop and a pharmacy. Kamilari is over the hill, ten minutes by car, and has three more good places to eat within a few steps of each other. Both are covered in the eating guide.