Cities

The wild and inaccessible canyon of Mesosfini is located 55km south of Heraklion city, in an isolated area west of the seaside village of Treis Ekklisies. Its entrance is located at a height of 450m, near the village of Mournies and Prinias, in the Asterousia Mountains. At its exit, 2km south, it is formed the majestic beach of Voidomatis, which can be accessed via a dirt track from Tris Ekklisies.

The Late Minoan settlement of Azorias is situated on a hill with two peaks 1km southwest of the village Kavoussi. The town flourished in the Archaic Period (7th - 5th century BC).

It is based in the heart of the old historic town, under the Venetian wall and the Archaeological Museum. It is housed in a Venetian building that operated (in the early 20th century until the 70s) as a soap factory and is now a modern museum around covering about 1000 sq.m.

The cavernous temple of Agia Dynami (Holy Force) is located in Argiroupolis. Within this small chapel there is a huge spring of Holy Force that supplies almost entire Rethymno province with water. Inside the temple there was an impressive mosaic of Christ, which has been now replaced with a simple icon as the initial has been moved to the museum of Rethymnon.

At Arhanes we meet the unique museum - private collection of engravings and exlibris in Greece. The exhibits include lithographs, ex libris, free graphics, thumbnails, etc.

Above Loutro there are still the ruins of the Turkish fortress, Koules, which dominated over the current settlement. The building was built in 1868 and had two towers on west and east sides. It has rectangular shape and some of its walls survive. Outside the walls, there are big tanks surviving.

A very wild gorge starting from the valley of Pervola, next to Mournia village at Asterousia Mounts, and ending on the remote amazing beach of Kaminaki. There is a trail, quite steep, starting from Pervola.

The town of Hyrtakina was built on the steep Kastri near the village Temenia and flourished in the Hellenistic Times. Today the vegetation has covered most parts of the ancient city.