Crete being is the largest island in Greece, crossed by imposing mountain-ranges, strewn with awe-inspiring gorges, featuring thousands of caves and numerous sandy beaches in addition to the island’s rich cultural and historical heritage, followed by tourism facilities, makes it hard to point out a limited list of options. However must see places can be narrowed down to the most visited ones with unique destinations of both natural beauty and cultural interest.

Chania Old Town with its Venetian Harbour lined with cafes, restaurants and winding cobbled alleyways steeped in history will amaze you with the beautiful historic buildings, where you will find Cretan handicraft shops, a weaver’s shop, boot makers on the Leather Street, and rows of shops selling hand carved Cretan knives. A stroll around the harbour gives the essence of its past and present naval activity in the view of fishing boats, yachts and pleasure boats, to finally reach the beautiful renovated lighthouse. A trip on a horse drawn carriage provides an insight on the heart of the old town.

Agios Nikolaos situated in Eastern Crete, is a town built around a picturesque lake which is connected to the sea by a short canal. The town has a cosmopolitan atmosphere and the modern marina hosts hundreds of boats and yachts. Lying just 10 km from Agios Nikolaos is the Elounda Gulf which is well known for its prestigious luxury hotels to often host the rich and famous, still retaining much of its old charm at the small fishing port of Elounda. Right of the coast of Elounda, Spinalonga Island with its Venetian fortification which was built to guard the entrance to the sheltered bay, also reveals parts of the rich local history. However Spinalonga, has been mainly renowned for hosting a leper colony from 1903 until 1957 where lepers from all over Greece were forcibly shipped to the island in order to avoid the spread of the disease, as being immortalised in Victoria Hislop’s bestselling book ‘The Island’. Nowadays the island, although being uninhabited, it can be visited by a short boat trip from Elounda, Plaka or Agios Nikolaos.

Just 25 km from the historic town of Rethymnon visitors find the most important site in the area of Arkadi Monestry, a living monastery with a heroic history being a national shrine. During the 1866 rebellion, the monastery served as a Cretan stronghold where hundreds of Cretan guerrilla fighters and their families took refuge as the Turks advanced and had the upper hand in the proceedings. After being surrounded by the Turkish army that lay siege for two days, the ammunition stores in the monastery were exploded deliberately on the orders of the Abbot where hundreds were killed in the internal blast, both Cretans and Turks, and consequently the Cretan survivors were put to death. There are celebrations annually on the anniversary of the 7-9 November blast. Nowadays there are still monks and a couple of nuns living at the monastery to ensure its preservation and maintenance of the church and the surrounding buildings and run the small museum where relics from the monastery and the church are kept.

Finally Cretan countless beaches both touristic and unexplored are not to be missed by any visitor. Within the periphery of Chania, Elafonisi is the most distinctive and popular one, situated on the west cost of the island. Here the visitor will find something exotic and distinctive where small beaches cluster with pink sand and shallow never ending waters, splashed with rocky small islands. Fragkokastello imposed by its Venetian castle, is at the end of the sandy coast with the lagoon of green – blue waters. At the end of Gramvousa cape is the beautiful Balos beach, in the west side of the island is Falasarna with an amazing sandy beach and smaller isolated bays while Maleme is another great in length sandy beach. Right outside the city of Rethymnon is a 12km long beach, having all the organized beaches on the north side of the area, while the south coast tend to have more isolated beaches such as Ammoudi with imposing rocks standing in the sea. Finally Preveli beach is located in exotic scenery composed by a river, waterfalls, palm trees and fine white sand. At the north coast of Heraklion beats the heart of the touristic industry of the whole island at beaches like Malia, Chersonissos etc. On the south coast more tranquil beaches can be found like Matala, also being known for the excavated caves inhabited by hippies during the 60′. The prefecture of Lasithi has numerous sandy or pebbled beaches usually being very busy and organized usually close to luxurious hotels like Elounda or Ierapetra. The most exotic beach or the area is Vai being the only seaside palm tree forest around the country.