Rethymno Old Town, the 1573 Venetian Fortezza and Arkadi Monastery

Situated on the northern coast almost exactly halfway between Chania (60 km west) and Heraklion (80 km east), Rethymno (Rethymnon) combines a lively university atmosphere and a 12-kilometre-long sandy town beach directly in front of town with one of the best-preserved Venetian-and-Ottoman historic quarters in Greece.

1. Walking Rethymno Old Town: Venetian Portals & Wooden Sachnisi Balconies

Enter the pedestrianised Old Town through the surviving 16th-century Guora Gate (Megali Porta) at the top of Antistaseos Square and wander down Arkadiou Street, Souliou Street and Vernardou Street:

• The Rimondi Fountain (1626) & Nerantze Mosque: in the heart of Platanos Square, cold mountain water still pours from three carved stone lion heads framed by quatre Corinthian columns built by Venetian Rector Alvise Rimondi in 1626. Two blocks away rises the tall three-balcony minaret of the 1657 Nerantze Mosque (Gazi Hüseyin Pasha Mosque, originally the Venetian Church of Santa Maria), now the town's Music Conservatory.
• Watch the Master of Hand-Stretched Phyllo (Yiorgos Hatziparaschos): in a high-ceilinged 17th-century Venetian mansion workshop on Vernardou Street, step inside to watch the legendary family stretch a single ball of dough across a giant cloth-covered table until it is thinner than silk to bake traditional Cretan baklava and kataifi.
• The Tiny Venetian Harbour & 1830s Lighthouse: finish with coffee or dinner around the miniature semicircular inner fishing port.

2. The 1573 Venetian Fortezza & Historic Arkadi Monastery (23 km south-east)

• The Fortezza (Built 1573 to 1580): crowning the rocky sea promontory of Paleokastro directly west of the harbour, this massive star-shaped Venetian citadel (1.3 km in perimeter) encloses the domed Sultan İbrahim Mosque (converted from the Venetian Cathedral of St Nicolo, featuring one of the largest hemispherical domes in Greece), vaulted gunpowder magazines and a 360-degree rampart walk over the Sea of Crete.
• Arkadi Monastery (Moni Arkadiou, 30 mins south-east in the foothills of Mount Ida): Crete's most revered national sanctuary, famous for the magnificent 1587 Venetian-Renaissance golden limestone facade of its twin-nave church and its heroic role in the 1866 Cretan Revolution.