Crete Travel Guide

Herakleio has developed into a modern city and into the commercial, industrial and agricultural centre of eastern Crete, handling a wealth of excellent products which include saltanas and various kinds of table grapes, such as the razaki variety from Archanes.

The city is the capital of the Prefecture of Herakleio and, since 1972, of the whole of Crete. It is also the ecclesiastical ‘capital’ of the island.

Herakleio has long been a cultural centre for Crete and has produced important figures in painting and literature, such as Domenico Theotokopoulos (‘El Greco’), the great novelist Nikos Kazantzakis, and the historian Yannis Mourellos.

Herakleio has grown rapidly and now has a population of 125.000, making it the island’s largest city. However, the fact the building has been largely unplanned and chaotic as meant that it faces the problems of large modern cities: traffic problems, lack of parks and open spaces.

The city as such is not of any great interest, with the exception of its Archeological Museum with its wonderful collections of antiquities which have been dug from the soil of Crete. The most famous of the Minoan sites awaits our exploration close to the city.