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Knosos is among the most impressive relics of the ancient Mediterranean world. The Minoan palace was imaginatively reconstructed in the early 20th century (see Ancient Knosos).

Once the island’s capital, this pretty little harbour town, with good beaches nearby and lots of open-air restaurants and shops, makes a great base for exploring Crete’s wild west (see Chania).

Crete’s third largest city is packed with reminders of a multi-layered history. A huge castle, Turkish mosques, Venetian town-houses and bustling markets are part of the charm, along with a beach esplanade (see Rethymno).

The best wines in Crete (and from other parts of Greece) can be tasted and bought in this new visitor centre at Crete’s top winery on the Fantaxommetocho vineyard (see Boutari Winery and Audio-Visual Show).

The international Hard Rock brand offers a familiar blend of cold beer, burgers and cocktails, attracting locals and visitors.

Dining aboard a floating pontoon moored in Elounda’s small fishing harbour, with a mix of Greek and international dishes.

to eat in the Chersonisos resort area. The house speciality is tender lamb kleftiko , roasted slowly in a paper wrapping with garlic, lemon and herbs.

Porfira brings Cretan cooking to gourmet heights, serving a selection of uniquely Cretan dishes. The waiters are happy to guide you through the menu and will gladly explain some of the less recognizable ingredients. Set on a terrace overlooking the beach (see Porfira, Makrygialos).

Handily located close to the Archaeological Museum, this taverna serves a wide variety of well-prepared traditional Cretan dishes.

Traditional Cretan ways of life that lasted for centuries only began to die out in recent decades. This lively open-air museum gives some insight into life on the island before tourism, television and the mobile phone. Fascinating exhibits include a windmill and an old stone cottage.

Knosos was pinpointed as an important archaeological site by the great Heinrich Schliemann and unearthed by British archaeologist Arthur Evans less than 100 years ago. The columns, courtyards and coloured frescoes of this ancient Minoan palace still have the power to amaze. Knosos was lost to history after the cataclysmic volcanic eruption that destroyed the Minoan civilization, but the site is now one of the most impressive relics of the vanished world of the Minoans (see Ancient Knosos).

At the Fantaxometochi Winery, south of Knosos near Archanes village, one of Greece’s leading winemakers has opened Crete’s newest purpose-built visitor attraction. A state-of-the-art audio-visual show celebrates the island – its landscapes, history and traditional way of life. The show also highlights the vineyards and grape varieties that produce some of the Boutari family’s award-winning wines. You can sample and buy Boutari red and white wines at the winery shop.

Toppled Roman columns, a ruined Byzantine basilica, post-Minoan fortifications, and an agora, acropolis and remains of temples to Athena and Apollo all hint at the past glories of this large and little-visited archaeological site close to Crete’s south coast. First settled in Minoan times, it became one of the most important cities of Doric Crete. It later allied itself with the Romans to become an important provincial capital, and was one of Crete’s most prosperous cities until it was sacked by Arab invaders during the anarchic years of the 8th century AD (see Gortys).

The so-called “Plain of Windmills” is a high plain of fertile farmland surrounded by bare grey limestone hills. Its nickname is misleading, though. Only a few rusting metal derricks remain of the famed white-sailed windmills that once dotted the plateau in their hundreds. However, Lasithi is still worth a visit for the spectacular drive through the mountains and the glimpses it offers of a traditional way of life.

Makrygialos is the most popular holiday resort on the southeast coast, with a long, straggling array of small pensions, hotels and tavernas stretching along a crescent of rather windswept, gently shelving sand and pebble beach, which is the best in this part of the island.

Leave Plateia Kornarou north of the fountain, along the market street Odos 1866, among stalls selling fresh fruit, olives, dried fruit and nuts, and less familiar produce such as buckets of live snails. Midway along 1866, turn left and walk along to Plateia Ekaterinis, where the main landmark is the pompous 19thcentury cathedral.

This labyrinth of ruins dating from around 1600 BC includes a Minoan courtyard and theatre with tiers of stone seats, a monumental stairway, peristyle hall and a vast central courtyard. The still undeciphered Phaestos Disc, which was discovered here, is on display in the Irakleio Archaeological Museum (see Irakleio Archaeological Museum). Phaestos was destroyed around 1450 BC by the cataclysm that also laid low the rest of Crete’s Minoan palaces. Not usually as crowded as the more famous Knosos, the site at Phaestos has an impressive location on a hillside above fertile farmland (see Phaestos).

The main claim to fame of the beach at Vai is in having the only wild palm grove in Europe. The palm forest apparently existed at least 2,000 years ago, so may have been planted by early navigators from the Middle East who came to Crete. The drawbacks are that the palm trees are fenced off and protected, and the beach becomes overrun with visitors in high season. Nevertheless, it is beautiful, especially if visited outside the busiest summer months of June, July and August.

Just outside Irakleio, Knosos is by far the most striking of the ancient Minoan palace ruins on Crete. Dating back more than 3,500 years, it was destroyed, probably by a volcanic eruption, around 1450 BC and not rediscovered until the late 19th century (see Ancient Knosos).

Walk through the portal and along Evans, named after the excavator of ancient Knosos, to Plateia Kornarou, named after the writer of the Cretan epic poem the Erotokritos . In the middle of this square stands a pretty, six-sided stone building, a café set within a pumphouse built by the Turks. Stop here, if you like, for a coffee in the shade of plane trees. Beside the café is the Venetian Bembo Fountain – note the broken, decapitated marble torso of a Roman statue built into its stonework.

At Chersonisos, the Aqua Splash Water Park is a playground of waterslides, waves and waterfalls.

A big, brash resort that may soon grow to merge with neighbouring Stalida and Malia. The beach is unarguably superb, and has an array of multinational bars and restaurants.

The flat, dish-shaped Lasithi Plateau offers easy walking on dirt tracks and paths through fields, olive groves and orchards. Starting from Tzermiadou, the 7-km (4-mile) stroll to the Diktian Cave takes about two hours.

The giant calamus reed grows as high as 4 m (13 ft) on the banks of Cretan streams.

Biggest and busiest of the island’s resorts, Limin Chersonisos straddles the north coast highway, a long double strip of hotels, apartment complexes, bars, restaurants, dance clubs and shops. Catering mainly to package holidaymakers, it has now almost merged with the neighbouring resorts of Stalida and Malia.

Only 3 km (2 miles) inland from the bustling resort of modern Malia, a ruined Minoan palace seems to grow from the rocky hillside (see Malia).

Malia beach

Crete’s leading museum houses amazing finds from Knosos and other great archaeological sites (see Irakleio Archaeological Museum).

The international dishes and Greek favourites are good value at this restaurant in the old part of Malia, which has tables in a shady courtyard.

Chania, Crete’s second largest city, is built around a fine natural harbour which attracted a host of settlers over the millennia, from early Minoans to Romans, Byzantines, Saracens, Venetians and Turks. The heart of the city is the old town, a huddle of narrow streets sheltered by a ring of battlements built by the Venetians; under their rule Chania was one of Crete’s most important ports. Today the old town is dominated by restaurants, cafés and bars, while outside the Venetian walls is the newer part of town. Chania has some of Crete’smost spectacular scenery as backdrop, with the slopes of the Lefka Ori range (White Mountains) rising steeply a short way inland and seeming to dominate the entire southern horizon (see Chania).

Firkas Fort, Chania

The market building is a Chania landmark and bustles with vendors and shoppers. A visual feast and also the place to buy herbs, olive oil, dried fruit, honey and typical Cretan souvenirs, such as the tiny metal pots used to brew Greek coffee.

Irakleio’s main market street and a great place to shop for Cretan herbs and tisanes. It also offers an insight into the Cretan diet – along with the olives, you will see buckets of live snails for sale.

Named after the legendary inventor of the Labyrinth (see The Minotaur and the Labyrinth), this road is rather more upmarket than Odos 1866, and is lined with shops selling jewellery and linen and cotton clothes to summer visitors.

The most photogenic market in Crete spills out – as indeed it has for centuries – from openfronted shops and stalls along Odos Ethnikis Andistasi and around the Venetian Porta Guora. Go early in the morning, when it is in full cry and waiters bustle from stall to stall with coffee and raki.

One of the most important Minoan palace sites in Crete, Phaestos is a fascinating maze of walls, stairways and courtyards on a hillside overlooking the Messara plain and the Libyan Sea (see Phaestos).

The valley of the “white river” – a stream which, like most Cretan watercourses, flows only in winter and spring – opens into the sea at the east end of Makrygialos beach. Surrounded by pines, boulder-covered slopes, terraced fields and olive groves, it makes a pleasant walk.

A small resort, purpose built around coves on the north coast, Bali comes to life in high season, when its “Paradise Beach” glistens with sunbathing bodies.

Rates a European Blue Flag for clean sand and water. There are even better, more secluded beaches to the south.

Vai’s beach is certainly the most scenic in eastern Crete, with yellow sand and a grove of date palms giving it a truly tropical appearance.

Elounda, on the Gulf of Mirabello, is Crete’s most expensive resort area, with several exclusive villa and hotel complexes in landscaped grounds. Several of these even have private beaches. The village itself is less upmarket, with a clutter of shops and restaurants surrounding a small fishing harbour from which boats depart daily in summer on trips to Spinalonga, the Venetian fortress-island and former leper colony not far offshore.

Rethymno is Crete’s third largest town (after Irakleio and Chania) and its most attractive, with an inner harbour overlooked by a huge, brooding Venetian fortress (the Fortetsa), streets of old-fashioned Venetian mansions, and a palm-fringed esplanade along a sandy beach. Thanks to its nearby beaches, Rethymno has become a fully fledged resort town, with holiday hotels east of the city centre, lots of shops, and plenty of good restaurants, lively bars and cafés. It also has a colourful early morning street market (see Rethymno & A Morning in Rethymno).

Market stall, Rethymno

Nerandzes Mosque, Rethymno

On your way back from the fortress, you will see a series of high stone vaults built into the wall behind the harbour. These were the Arsenali or shipyards where the great galleys were built that gave Venice its control of the sea.