History

Here you can see some of the earliest European civilizations from the Minoan over 4000 years ago., thru countless invasions by Mycenean Greeks, Romans, Venetians, Arabs and Turks, most recently the Germans. Lots of artefacts remain, many close by – a beautiful mosaic at Almerida, Roman cisterns and Minoan temples at Aptera, the Turkish fort at Kalami, or in Chania the old harbour where you can imagine the Venetians galleys in the Arsenali; the fortress and its excellent museum.

At Aptera you can stand amongst the scattered ruins surrounded by vegetation of the monastery, Roman baths and aqueducts, ancient Greek roads, tombs and statue bases, and on the headland, a recently renovated Turkish Fort. This jumbled assortment of different archeological periods, overgrown, partly explained but with enormous opportunity for the imagination, is typical of Crete.

The site where Eliftheros Venizelos in 1913 reunited Crete with the rest of Greece is in Armenoi, just off our hill, and there are World War II sites such as Maleme, where the fate of Crete was decided during the German invasion.