Knossos and Rethymno

It had been a tough week, but with things in hand as we waited for the slow bureaucrats in the UK to process the paperwork, we weren’t needed, so we decided to stay on. We hired a car for a few days and headed off to Heraklion, more specifically Knossos, which ended up being a pleasant hour and a half’s drive on the main highway, hugging the coastline.

We had set off quite late, so when we arrived and knowing that once we started exploring, we’d forget to eat, we found a small organic restaurant close by set underneath flowering olive trees and tucked into some delicious authentic Cretan food. After lunch, we made our way to the Minoan palace. First built in 1900 BC, but then adapted by the Minoans some 500 years later, it holds folklore surrounding its ruler King Minos, the labyrinth for the Minotaur, and for me, the story of how Daedalus and his son Icarus escaped imprisonment from the labyrinth, only for Icarus to fly too close to the sun and fall to his death in what after became the Icarian Sea.

The palace itself is huge and sits on an artificial hill, with commanding views on all sides. The sprawling building layout is very complex. Daedalus’ remit was to design it so that visitors would be trapped there until Minos was ready for them to leave. Sadly for me, it was recreated in the 1970s by an English archaeologist, who used inappropriate building materials (concrete) that I found hard to look past, but it didn’t bother Rach, who really enjoyed it.

After leaving the palace, we set off into Heraklion to see the famed museum, only to discover it closed. So, from there, we decided to spend the rest of the day taking a look around Rethymno, which is halfway between Heraklion & Chania. The weather was beautiful, so we parked up along the seafront and decided to walk the couple of miles into the port and then into the old town.

The Venetian port was much smaller than the one in Chania, but against the backdrop of the sea, it was as impressive. The old town was perhaps more extensive than Chania’s, with different streets seemingly given over to the collective groups of craftsmen to showcase their wares. We got a little lost as we strayed deeper into this labyrinth, fortunately knowing that the sea was to our left. We eventually got back to the seafront and after walking about a half a mile past the car as we chatted, we retraced our steps back to the car and made our way home.