Crete Island Travel Guide

I really enjoyed this city even though I have heard that Chania is better.  We booked at the Hotel Irini (Irene) and it was a decent price and a very nice place to stay.  It was within walking distance of very nice places to eat, an interesting fort at the coast, and the shopping/ city center.  It seemed to be very relaxing at night and I felt very safe walking around at night too.  That still does not mean let your gaurd down though.  There were lots of interesting bars/pubs/restaurants to pick.  Some of the choice in food was kinda weird, but we managed fine.  Not really a whole lot to see, but still very peaceful.  I recommend that you check out a ferry to take you to the island Santorini for a few days while you are there.  Taking a one day tour of Santorini will not be long enough!  I also recommend that you see the Palace of Knossos and the Mueseum for the Knossos, cannot remember the exact name of it.  The Palace of Knossos is the ancient ruins of the very first civilization in Europe, so they say.  We also had a tour booked with George the Taxi driver which was  a neat way to get a tour.  You can search for that tour and should be able to find it.  We had one disappointment and that was poor and false advertising of this site:  http://www.diversclub-crete.gr/  becuase I booked in advance and made arrangments through email for someone from this company to pick us up at our hotel and we had an appointment for scuba diving and they never even showed up; they completely stood us up.  I even emailed them and they completely ignored me.  So just do not plan to use this company for scuba diving.  Other than that, I enjoyed Crete very much! 

The monastery of Arkadiou is situated in this vicinity. By the mid-1800s, the Turks had occupied Crete for more than two centuries, despite frequent bloody uprisings by Cretan rebels. The monastery of Arkadi became the rebels' headquarters, owing to its central position on the island and it's strategic location. There were 259 rebels in the monastery and 12 out of the 16 revolutionary committee's members. In addition to the rebels and revolutionary leaders, there were 700 unarmed women and children from nearby villages who were seeking refuge from the Turks. On November 8, 1866, the Monastery was surrounded by 15,000 Turkish soldiers armed with 30 cannons. The Turkish commander gave Abbot Gabriel Marinakis an ultimatum, which was to either surrender or the Monastery would be destroyed. The ultimatum was answered by gunfire from the rebels. After several days of fighting the Turks, by sheer weight of numbers penetrated the Monastery's walls. As they poured into the inner courtyard, where they fought a hand to hand fight with the rebels. The women and children sought refuge in a gunpowder room where they decided it would be better to commit suicide than surrender to the Turks. Konstantinos Giamboudakis set the gunpowder off and caused the explosion which killed the 700 women and children and several hundred Turkish soldiers. The Greeks killed over 3,000 Turks and Egyptians in the battle.