⭐ Travel Guide for Island Crete ⛵, Greece❗

Heraklion is the largest city in Crete with a population of about 200.000. Heraklion houses the public services and the major scientific centers of Crete, being the commercial center of the island with the main port and airport.

From a scenic city with unique traditional Venetian and Ottoman monuments in the early 1900s, as one of the most historical cities in the Mediterranean, Heraklion, unfortunately, turned into a bustling cement-dominating city, losing almost all of its aristocratic splendor. This bad development was a result of the need for rapid expansion of the city for the settling of the refugees after the Asia Minor Catastrophe (1922), but also from the effort to "modernize" Heraklion by turning the beautiful old buildings into blocks of flats.

However, even today the visitor can get a good taste of the glorious image of the past, while the locals can be surprised by the unknown corners of Heraklion and the story hidden behind them.

The history of Heraklion starts in the Minoan era, as it was the port of the legendary city of Knossos. However, the city in its present location (the old center) was built in 824 by the Arabs and later expanded and fortified by the Venetians and the Turks, who named it as the Large Castle of Candia. The current name Heraklion was given after the liberation of Crete from the Turks in 1898.

Heraklion Venetian shipyards

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At the port of Heraklion we see even today part of the shipyards (arsenals) consisting of large elongated domed rooms. They are the shipyards of the Venetians where they housed, stored, constructed and repaired their ships.

Historical Museum of Crete

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The Historical Museum of Crete was founded in 1953 by the Society of Cretan Historical Studies. It is housed in a beautiful neoclassical building that was the home of Minos Kalokerinos and a courtesy of the Kalokerinos family Institute.

Heraklion Museum of Visual Arts

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The Museum of Visual Arts in Heraklion is a private art museum. It was founded in May 2000 by Kostas Schizakis. Its activities include organizing educational seminars and lectures on artistic creation.

Cathedral of Saint Minas

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Saint Minas is the patron saint and protector of the Grand Castle (Heraklion) and its past combines legend with tradition and the town's history. It was built in 1862, next to the smaller temple of Saint Minas.

Saint Titus

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During the second Byzantine period, as the largest and prime official church in the city of Chandax, St. Titus became the seat of the new Orthodox Diocese of Crete. The Venetians later installed a Catholic archbishop and converted the church into a Catholic cathedral.

Saint Mark Basilica

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The Municipal Gallery of Heraklion is hosted in the Basilica of Saint Mark in the center of Heraklion, just opposite the famous Lions’ fountain. The basilica was built by the Venetians in 1239, was destroyed by an earthquake in 1303 but restored immediately,

Saint Peter of Dominicans

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The Church of Sts Peter and Paul was built during the early years of the Venetian domination and served as the main temple of the monastery of Dominican order (Domenicani Predicatori). It is one of the oldest monuments of architecture of the Cistercian monks in the 12th century, both in Europe and in Greece.

Morozini Fountain

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The fountain of Morozini (known as Lions) is one of the nicest Venetian monuments of Candia (current Heraklion). The fountain was watered by the spring of Karidaki and the watered traveled about 15km in a gigantic aqueduct, one of the longest in the then world.

Heraklion

Archaeological Museum of Heraklion

Koules Fort

Knossos Palace

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