Crete Guide
Where To Stay
Thalassa Luxury Boutique: luxury choice, opt for private butler and limo transfer
Kings: Central location at a great value price, great for shopping, nightlife and eating.
Akteon Village: Great for families and people in search of an all round holiday resort style property.
Eating
Crete is the most famous place in Greece for tasty and healthy cuisine. A good tip is to join any of the hundreds of traditional fiestas in villages having great food, wine and live folk music.
There are many traditional taverna around serving the feta cheese, Horta vrasta (boiled greens with olive oil and lemon juice), Greek salad, souvlaki, dolmadakia (stuffed vine leaves), gemista (tomatoes and courgette stuffed with rice), fried courgette or aubergine slices, dakos (Cretan rusk with tomato, feta cheese, olives, oregano and olive oil).
Seafood is also readily available and at a price to suite everybody's pockets. Favourites like calamari, shrimps saganaki (shrimps in red sauce with cheese), mussels. Octopus and fried small fish like atherina or gavros are favourite local dishes and well worth try.
Budget: Ippocampus - The restaurant is situated on 3 Mitsotaki street and is a very popular dining spot with locals. Their specialties include tasty appetizers such as zucchini slices which are dipped in a delicious batter and deep-fried, as well as deliciously prepared fried squid.
Mid-Range: Loukoulos - Situated on 5 Korai street. The restaurant is located in the centre of the city and features a traditional Greek setting. The menu consists of a delicious selection of both Italian and Greek cuisine, which features a large number of tasty pasta dishes.
Luxury: Kyriakos - The restaurant is situated on 53 Leoforos Demokratias and is known as one of the most stylish restaurants in Heraklion. The menu consists of a large selection of traditional Greek cuisine, offering delicious dishes such as artichokes served with potatoes and lettuce and lamb fricassee, as well as aubergines stuffed with feta.
Things To See And Do
- The ruins of the ancient Minoan civilization in Knossos, Phaistos and the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion.
- The big variety of landscapes in a short distance: the wilderness and solitude of the Cretan mountains some hundred metres away from the coast.
- The eccentric culture of Crete in the traditional cafes (kafeneia).
- The gorge of Samaria
- Listen to traditional Cretan music: Lra is the dominant folk instrument on the island; it is a three-stringed fiddle, direct descendant of the ancient Lyre, which is held vertically, resting on the thighs of the player and is played with a bow like a violin. It is often accompanied by the Cretan lute (laoto), which is similar to both an oud and a mandolin.
- Complete the walk down the Samaria Gorge from the Omalos plateau to Agia Roumeli on the Libyan Sea, at which point tourists sail to the nearby village of Hora Sfakion and catch a coach back to Hania. The walk takes between four and seven hours and can be strenuous, especially in high summer.
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