Old Town & Harbour

A look around

What you’ll be living next to. Swipe through.

1/5

Where it sits

The circle is Old Town & Harbour and roughly a 10-minute walk around it.

How far is everything?

From the middle of this area to the city's headline sights — pick your own on the city page and these become your list.

• Sunset drinks on the harbourright here50 m
• Etz Hayyim Synagogue2 min walk166 m
• Stivanadika (Leather Lane)3 min walk276 m
• The Municipal Market (Agora)3 min walk282 m
• Cretan food & raki4 min walk361 m
• Splantzia square5 min walk379 m
• Nea Chora (beach)12 min walk975 m
• Nea Chora town beach14 min walk1.2 km
• Agii Apostoli beaches11 min taxi3.8 km

On your doorstep

What you’re living next to if you stay here.

• 1.The Venetian Harbour — Chania's glory — a curving Venetian port ringed by pastel mansions, the arches of the old shipyards, and the domed Kücük Hasan mosque on the waterfront. Endlessly beautiful, and different at every hour: café-quiet in the morning, golden at sunset, strung with lights at night. Just being here, drink in hand, is the main event.
• 2.The Venetian Lighthouse — The elegant stone lighthouse at the end of the harbour mole, one of the oldest in the world — a fifteen-minute walk out along the breakwater for the classic view back across the water to the whole sweep of the old town and the White Mountains behind. Best at sunset, when the harbour glows and the crowds thin.
• 3.The Old Town lanes — Get lost on purpose in the maze behind the harbour — narrow stone streets of Venetian doorways, crumbling Ottoman balconies, bougainvillea, craft shops and hidden tavernas, with the odd Byzantine wall or ruined church around a corner. The wandering is the point; every alley opens onto something photogenic.
• 7.Firkas Fortress — The Venetian fortress guarding the harbour mouth, where the Greek flag was first raised over a united Crete in 1913. Climb its ramparts for a commanding view over the harbour and the old town, and step into the Maritime Museum within; a compact dose of the town's turbulent history with the best vantage in Chania.
• 9.Maritime Museum of Crete — Housed in the Firkas fortress, a well-told museum of Cretan seafaring — ship models, naval instruments and a moving section on the Battle of Crete, plus a separate hall down the harbour on ancient and traditional shipbuilding. A rewarding hour for anyone curious about the island's maritime past, in a fine old setting.