Not to miss

Hania

Hania is Hollywood Moussaka. Apart from being the largest city in Western Crete, it's swamped with beautiful Venetian and Turkish buildings and this, along with its harbourside setting, white onion-domed churches, and winding paved laneways make it ideal camera-bait.

The Archeological, Naval and Folklore museums are worth a visit, as is the Public Market, a turn-of-the-century building housing grocery stores, butchers' shops and a fish market. The Public Gardens next door are also lovely, but Hania's biggest drawcard is it natural assets and architecture.

Iraklio

Iraklio is the main entry point for Crete and is often dismissed as a grim necessity that must be endured in order to get somewhere more inviting. But scratch beneath its traffic-ridden, helter-skelter surface and you'll find a certain urban sophistication coupled with a lively cafe scene.

Iraklio's two main squares are Plateia Venizelou and Plateia Eleftherias. Plateia Venizelou is the heart of the city and the city's major intersection is south of here. Major arteries run northeast to the harbour, southeast to Plateia Eleftherias, west to Hania gate and south to the markets.

Knossos

This palace, in a beautiful site just southeast of Iraklio, is the most magnificent, intricate and evocative of Crete's Minoan sites. In order to give visitors an idea of what the palace looked like, its discoverer, Sir Arthur Evans, had parts of it reconstructed.

Thanks to Evans' controversial reconstruction, the most significant parts of the complex are instantly recognisable (if not instantly found). On your wanders you will come across many of Evans' reconstructed columns, most painted deep brown-red with gold-trimmed black capitals. Like all Minoan columns, they taper at the bottom.

It is not only the vibrant frescoes and mighty columns which impress at Knossos; keep your eyes open for the little details which are evidence of a highly sophisticated society. Things to look out for include the drainage system, the placement of light wells, and the relationship of rooms to passages, porches, light wells and verandas, which kept rooms cool in summer and warm in winter.

Phaestos

Phaestos was the second most important palace city of Minoan Crete. Of all the Minoan sites, Phaestos (fes-tos) has the most awe-inspiring location, with all-embracing views of the Mesara Plain and Mt Psiloritis. The layout of the palace is identical to Knossos, with rooms arranged around a central court.

In contrast to Knossos, Phaestos has yielded very few frescoes. It seems the palace walls were mostly covered with a layer of white gypsum; there has been no reconstruction. Like the other palatial period complexes, this one had an old palace that was destroyed at the end of the Middle Minoan period. Unlike the other sites, parts of this old palace have been excavated and its ruins are partially super-imposed upon the new palace.

The entrance to the new palace is by the 15m/49ft-wide Grand Staircase. The stairs lead to the west side of the Central Court. The best-preserved parts of the palace complex are the reception rooms and private apartments to the north of the Central Court; excavations continue here.

This section was entered by an imposing portal with half columns at either side, the lower parts of which are still in situ. Unlike the Minoan freestanding columns, these do not taper at the base. The celebrated Phaestos disc was found in a building to the north of the palace. The disc is in Iraklio's Archaeological Museum.

Hania Old Town

An exotic mix of Venetian and Ottoman architecture makes Hania Crete's most evocative town. The Venetian lighthouse and former mosque frame the picturesque harbour lined with restored Venetian mansions that house boutique hotels, pensions and restaurants. Remnants of the Venetian city walls border a web of atmospheric streets, where you'll see artisans at work and find the island's most eclectic shopping.

Roofless Venetian mansions house ambient restaurants and elegant bars. The archaeological museum and the naval museum are small but worthwhile museums. The Firkas fortress near the harbour runs off the best-preserved section of the massive fortifications which were built by the Venetians to protect the city from marauding pirates and invading Turks. Under Turkish rule Hania was the seat of the Pasha, while the Great Powers made Hania the capital; Iraklio became capital in 1971. Among the town's impressive buildings are the colourful cruciform market, the synagogue and the great arsenal and shipsheds along the harbour. Hania is on the site of the Minoan settlement of Kydonia, whose ruins are being excavated to the east of the harbour near the Turkish quarter.