Travel in Crete ☼

Anoula’s travel notebook
Let’s start !

The island of Crete is the biggest of the Greek islands, it covers an area of 8,336km² (3,219 square miles).
This is also the last island you will meet before you land on the African continent.
The island of Crete is made of mountains, plateaus, fertile plains and magnificent canyons leading to sumptuous mediterranean beaches.
Crete is surrounded by the mediterranean sea and by the Libyan sea.
To the east, you will find olive groves, to the west, you’ll find orange groves. To the south, you will discover huge greenhouses containing the delicious vegetables which will end in delicious traditional Greek salads in your plates.

Like in any mountain areas, you cannot travel fast from the west to the east of the Island. Even if Crete is only 260km long, it will take you from 5 to 6 hours by car and 8 to 10 by coaches ( because of stops and connections) to go from one end to the other.

Many roads are sinuous and damaged which is part of the Charm of Crete.
Heraklion is the capital of Crete, there are also two other “big” cities, that I will talk about later : Hania and Rethymnon.

I decided to create Voyageencrete.com (French words for travel in crete) after I lived on the Island of Crete for a year. I wanted to share my experience and memories with future travelers.
Before traveling in Crete, I just found information about hotels and restaurants on the internet. The essential was missing : How do people live in Crete? Which are the customs on the Greek island? What can I visit? What do landscapes look like in Crete?
I wanted advices about rambling and trekking. An essential fact was also missing, what would the climate be all over the year?
I would have liked to see beautiful pictures which could have helped me to not be afraid of living one year on an Island.
So here I am, I’m going to inform you with all the secrets that the Island of Crete had been kind to reveal to me during one year in my life on my “island of beauty”.

A little advice before traveling : buy the book of Katzantzaki, Zorba the Greek and you will travel further on.
Anoula

Katzantzaki’s grave in Heraklion, on the Crete Island.

“I hope for nothing
I fear nothing
I am free”

Read, listen and meditate :