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Promoting the produce of local farmers, this co-operative venture is well worth visiting just to see how the vines and olives of Crete are grown and processed. It is also a good place to pick up quality olive oil, very drinkable wines and raki, Crete’s favourite spirit.

Artistic wood-turner acquiring an international reputation for his beautiful handmade bowls, vases and works of art.

The big, breezy self-service café beside the Morosini Fountain offers cold drinks, snacks, pizza, pasta and cooked breakfasts.

With its pretty garden setting, this is one of the town’s finest. Mainly grilled and roasted meats, and Cretan favourites such as apatzia sausages and roasted goat.

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.

Agios Nikolaos has the most attractive location of any town in eastern Crete. By the Gulf of Mirabello, it is built around an inner lagoon, Voulismeni, which is surrounded by palm trees and cafés. Modern hotels and apartments dwarf the surviving older buildings, but it is still a place of considerable charm. There is a small town beach, and boats take holidaymakers to larger beaches nearby. The town takes its name from the tiny 11thcentury church of Agios Nikolaos (which now stands in the grounds of the Minos Palace Hotel. The Archaeological Museum (see Agios Nikolaos Archaeological Museum) displays numerous finds from nearby sites including Mochlos and Gournia.

Agios Nikolaos harbour

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).

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).

This museum is linked with a holiday village which tries to give its guests a taste of traditional Cretan life, with craft workers who use traditional methods, a restaurant and bakery with wood-burning ovens, and live music and dancing in the evening.

Monks have been drawn to Crete’s peninsulas – Akrotiri’s best monasteries are the abandoned Moni Katholikou and the Venetian Moni Gouverneto (see Moni Gouverneto).

Pleasant cafés and shops conceal Anogeia’s embattled past, when it was a hotbed of resistance against the Turks, who sacked it in 1821 and 1826, and the Germans, who levelled it in 1944.

A Byzantine town built on the site of a Hellenistic city, remains here include Roman cisterns, Byzantine foundations, a Venetian monastery and a Turkish fort.

Founded in 700 BC, ancient Eleftherna was a powerful Dorian city. Having vanished from history, it is now being rediscovered by archaeologists.

The small farming town of Archanes has a surprisingly good museum with finds from nearby sites, including clay Minoan coffins, fragments of pottery, and a sacrificial dagger that may have been used in human sacrifice.

A major rendezvous point for excursion groups who arrive by boat having walked the Samaria Gorge. Once they have found their coaches, the town returns to its pleasant slumber.

The Archangel Michael, leader of the heavenly host, is known in Greek as “O Taxiarchis” (the Brigadier) and is depicted in armour, sword in hand, along with other saints in the frescoes within the pretty 14th-century church at Asomatos.

Loukanika – small spicy pork sausages – are found all over Greece, but those from Crete are reckoned to be among the best. They may be served fried (tiganita ) or smoked (kapnista ), and are a regular feature of a lavish meze (dish of appetizers).

Another exotic import, cumin is essential in the slowly cooked casserole stifado .

Taking its name from the Dikti mountains, this variety of oregano is unique to Crete and has long been credited with restorative powers.

The remote and barely populated Gramvoussa Peninsula has one of Crete’s best beaches at Falasarna, where there are also the scattered remains of a Hellenistic city.

Finely ground coffee and sugar are boiled together in small metal pots to make a thick, black drink, which is served in a tiny cup along with a tall glass of water. To order a sweet coffee, ask for glykou ; for mediumsweet, ask for metriou ; and for coffee without sugar order skieto .

Just north of Vai, Itanos has three small pebble and shingle beaches that are never as crowded as Vai’s stretch of golden sand. The scant remains of an ancient city can be seen on the low hills beyond.

The monks of Koudouma live in enviable isolation in a tiny monastery on a sandy beach fringed with palm trees.

Overlooked by Mt Kastelleos, Kritsa stands at the edge of a wide and fertile plain and is regarded as one of Crete’s most important craft centres.

Named for its founders, the Litinos clan of Byzantine nobles, the village has two 15th-century churches, Agios Athanasios and Tis Panagias.

Vathypetrou was presumably the home of a Minoan landowner, and ancient wine-making equipment found on the site indicates that the surrounding vineyards are thousands of years old.

Tylissos was inhabited more than 4,000 years ago, but the most interesting discoveries are the remains of three large Minoan villas.

This ubiquitous wild herb scents the air on rural walks and flavours dozens of dishes.

This restored 14th-century monastery is now a nunnery and also a centre for traditional weaving and needlework.

A monastery that seems to merge into the cliffs, with the mummified body of a monk in its chapel.

Fortified monastery founded in the 14th century. Its massive walls were built to protect it from pirates (see Moni Toplou).

Looming to the south of Archanes, Mt Giouchtas is the mythical burial place of the god Zeus. The remains of a Minoan sanctuary are below the summit, and the area has been declared a conservation area, with the aim of protecting eagles, vultures and other raptors.

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

A barren peninsula that attracted the Orthodox monks who built the monastery of Moni Gonia, which has several fine icons.

Pretty village worth visiting for its superb view of the bay. Large plane trees shade the village square, and a stream feeds a natural fountain next to an old church.

Deserted medieval village in rolling hill country, with a dilapidated Venetian tower standing guard over roofless cottages. The small church of Agios Georgios is well preserved.

The burial place of more than 1,500 Allied soldiers who died during the Battle of Crete, in May 1941.