Hi!
I've just returned from holidays on
Crete, and here are my brief observations:
-
Winter is really great time to visit
Crete. Very few tourists around, and all attractions are all for you, only you literally. I've been the only visitor to the Minoan Knossos Palace and Ancient
Roman Aptera, priceless experience.
- Heraklion archeological museum - flagship museum of
Crete with long
history and great
collection, with nicely selected and presented exhibits. When you buy ticket ask if all departments are open. I
had to visit the museum two times as it appeared that
Roman department was closed because of strike on my first visit, nobody bothered to let me know about strike when
selling the ticket. The focus of numismatic
collection is on
Greek coins. There are several nice local
hoards presented - it is an awesome sight to see so many impressive
greek coins in large
hoards! Unfortunately they don't allow to take the pictures of the
hoards.
- Chania archeological museum - much smaller in
scale compared to Heraklion's museum. It feels like it was set up to keep busy the tourists in summer, and earn some
money for local
budget along. There are two exceptionally large transperant displays with locally found coins of Hellenistic and
Roman periods. The displays are erected vertically so that the coins can be conveniently viewed from both sides. Btw, the majority of the
collection represented with the coins from the Hellenistic period, carefully arranged in chronological order focusing on local mints of
Crete (about 400+ coins on display).
Funny enough, in the
Roman period I noticed that two
denarii of
Marcus Aurelius/Caesar and
Faustina were swapped, as both did not correspond with respective descriptions. I pointed out this to museum worker. If someone
comes over to the Chania museum one day - have a look, and check if they
corrected this mistake!
Handy tips:
-consider staying at local houses, using airbnb.com. Locals are very hospitable, you will be always provided with local mades on top of your stay, like olive oil, wine, rakia, fruits, etc whatever is available from their own yards.
-public transport is in slow mode in
winter, so you will need a
car to move around. Internet rates are surprisingly low - I managed to hire an
Opel for as low as 8
euro per day for 3 weeks.
-
Crete winter is nothing like European
winter, the temperatures are in between 12 and 20 degrees of Celsius with predominantly sunny days. Sun and sea bathing is possible on sunny days.
- There is a famous E4 long-distance path that starts in
Portugal and goes through entire Europe, and through entire
Crete too. Consider hiking some mountain parts of
Crete along E4 path, especially around
Samaria George (though note that
Samaria Gorge itself is closed in
winter). The trails are well marked, and easy enough to navigate. White Mountains covered with snow will be all around you, - spectacular.
Below Im adding several photos...
Z.
