Heraklion

Crete

Crete's easy gateway

Ancient

History

Food

Island

Authentic

About Heraklion

Heraklion is the workmanlike capital of Crete, a Venetian harbour town more lived-in than picturesque.

A fort guards the old port, the bones of the Minoan palace of Knossos lie just outside town, and the island's mountains rise behind. Most people pass through on the way to a beach, but the city rewards a slower look with its covered market and its waterfront.

Cretans are warm and famously long-lived, fuelled by olive oil, mountain herbs and a fierce local pride.

Eat dakos rusks piled with tomato, fresh fish by the harbour, and accept the shot of raki that arrives unasked.

Get to Heraklion

Round trip from Prague, any dates in November 2026.

Day trips from Heraklion

Half day
Knossos
~20 min
The labyrinthine palace of Minoan Crete, Europe's oldest city: 3,500-year-old frescoes, royal chambers and the throne room of the king behind the Minotaur legend, just beyond the city's edge.
Day trip
Spinalonga & Agios Nikolaos
~1 h or 1 h 45 min , then
A Venetian island fortress that became Europe's last leper colony, facing the lakeside resort town of Agios Nikolaos and the bay of Elounda — boats cross the calm Mirabello gulf all day.
Day trip
Matala
~1 h 15 min , ~2 h
The beach where 1960s hippies — Joni Mitchell among them — lived in Roman-era caves carved into the cliff. Today it's a laid-back south-coast village on the Libyan Sea.
Day trip
Lasithi Plateau
~1 h 15 min
A green high plain ringed by the peaks of Dikti, dotted with orchards and the white sails of old windmills, and home to the Diktaean cave — in myth, the birthplace of Zeus.
Long day
Samaria Gorge
~2.5 h to the Omalos trailhead
One of Europe's longest gorges: a 16 km descent through the White Mountains from the Omalos plateau to the Libyan Sea, past sheer 300 m walls that pinch to the 3 m 'Iron Gates', with wild kri-kri goats on the cliffs. Crete's great day hike, ending at the shore village of Agia Roumeli.