A Travel Blog
We wanted to see the interior of Naxos beyond the main port town, and luckily the island has an excellent public bus service that operates under the KTEL umbrella, like the buses we took in Crete a few years ago. We had our choice of pretty mountain towns to visit — Chalki and Filoti almost made the cut — but we settled on Apeiranthos.
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The Greek island of Delos sits at the center of the Cyclades. The island held great importance to both the Ancient Greeks (as religious center) and the Romans (as a commercial port). Today the island is an uninhabited archaeological site that can only be visited during limited hours. Staying overnight or swimming on Delos is forbidden.
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On a rocky peninsula beside the main ferry port in Naxos are the remains of the Temple of Apollo, also known as the Portara, due to the door-like shape of the few stones left standing.
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On this trip, we did something we’ve never done before while travelling — we rented a car. I usually find driving more stressful than enjoyable, especially in another country, but Astypalea is a small and manageable island with only a few roads. And without a car there’s no convenient way to visit the more out-of-the-way sights.
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After winding our way up through the heart of Astypalea’s Chora, we finally found ourselves in the stony castle (aka kastro or castro) that dominates the top of the hill. Entrance was through an arched tunnel, where we also found some signboards with information about the history of the castle.
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After our visit to Knossos, we took the bus back in to town and visited the Heraklion Archaeological Museum. One of the top museums in Greece, it focuses heavily on Minoan history, particularly the finds from Knossos. The museum is a good way to try to understand the context of the archaeology we’d seen.
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Knossos is an archeological site located in Crete just outside the capital city of Heraklion. The palace complexes built here by the ancient Minoans peaked around 1700 BC with a population of over 100,000 residents.
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Our final destination in Crete was the capital city of Heraklion (also spelled Iraklio). We used the city as a base to visit the Palace of Knossos before flying back to Athens to begin our journey home. Heraklion is the busy capital of Crete and it doesn’t get a lot of love from locals or tourists, but we found it an easy place to spend a couple days.
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Rethymno may be smaller than Chania, but its Venetian Fortezza (fortress, aka castle) is much more impressive than the Firka in Chania. We’d been warned the Fortezza might be closed due to recent rainy weather, but we wandered up anyway, if only to take some photos of the outside.
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Chania’s old town surrounds the Venetian Port. Remnants of the original Venetian fortification walls can still be found in some places, along with the typical narrow streets and old stone buildings common to historic centers across Europe. The area also includes the Firka Fortress, now home to the Maritime Museum.
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The compact but beautiful Archaelogical Museum of Chania is located just off Chalidon, the wide pedestrianized street that bisects the old town and connects the modern city center to the Venetian Harbour.
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Koum Kapi is a stretch of the Chania waterfront just east of the Venetian Harbour. It’s a low-key, lined with modest cafes. The waves come in harder due to a lack of a breakwater and it makes for some great photos.
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