The area of Paracandia, as the Venetians called the area around Candia, current city of Heraklion, hosted some important monasteries and hermitages, some of which were built around the small range of Jiouktas.
Agia Irini Hrysovalandou 
The Holy Monastery of Santa Irene Hrysovalantou in Heraklion is located on the southern outskirts of the city. It was founded as a male monastery on April 14, 2002 by father Methodios Samaritakis. It currently has a few monks engaged in the production of wax and incense, and the management of the House of Elders that hosts elderly people.
The Holy monastery of St. Theodore is located on the road that leads to the University Hospital of Heraklion. The nunnery was founded by Timothy Tzannis in around 1980.
Lord Christ Church at Jiouktas 
The Monastery of Christ the Savior or fendis Christos served as a Venetian monastery and was well known to all travelers coming to Jiouktas, to see the place where the ancients placed the tomb of Zeus.
The very old church of Michael the Archangel is located south of Archanes, bearing frescoes of 1315. A mural depicts the founder of the church holding a model of the church and there are depictions of sinners in hell.
Many believed that somewhere in Jiouktas lived once the Apostle Paul. Indeed, within walking distance from the church of Christ there are the remains of a very interesting building that is connected to the hermitage of St. Paul.
Here we meet the ruins of Panagia nunnery at position Karydaki. It was a two-aisled church with a transverse narthex. From a spring next to this monastery, the famous Morosini fountain in Candia (now Heraklion’s Morosini fountain at Lions square) was watered after running through a giant aqueduct system of that era.
The temple is one of the many in Crete dedicated to Saint Anthony, the "saint of the caves". It is a catacomb carved in the soft limestone of the area. Probably, it is the residue of an ancient temple or grave formed after widening a pre-existing cave. We should not overlook the existence of the several Minoan sacred caves on Mount Youchtas.
Near Karkadiotissa, at the deserted today settlement Agalantes and amid an area with huge oak trees, operated the Venetian monastery of Astratigos (Michael Archangel). The monastery is a dependency of the monastery Saint George Epanosifis. Despite the long siege of Candia by the Ottomans, this monument has not suffered the devastation experienced by most monasteries around Temenos province and the 15th-century frescoes have survived in relatively good condition.
