Rethymno Old Town

The layout

The old town occupies a headland. The Fortezza, the Venetian fortress begun in 1573, closes the northern end; the Venetian harbour with its lighthouse sits on the east side; Porta Guora marks the southern edge where the walls once ran. Everything in between is walkable in twenty minutes if you do not stop, which nobody does.

What to look for

The Rimondi Fountain, 1626, built by the Venetian rector Alvise Rimondi: three lion heads pouring water between Corinthian columns, in a small square that is still the meeting point of the quarter.

Porta Guora, the only piece of the city wall left standing, an arched gate that separates the old town from the modern one.

The Neratze Mosque, a Venetian church converted after the Ottoman conquest of 1646 and given the tallest minaret in Crete. It now serves as the city's music school and concert hall.

The Fortezza, one of the largest Venetian castles built, with a ticketed circuit of walls, the domed Sultan Ibrahim Mosque inside, and views over the sea and the town.

The Venetian harbour, small, curved and lined with tavernas, with the Egyptian-built lighthouse of the 1830s at its mouth.

Eating

Rethymno is the strongest food town in the region and much of it is in the old quarter: bakeries selling kalitsounia and lichnarakia, the Chatziparaschos family workshop where filo and kataifi have been made by hand for more than sixty years, and tavernas in the back streets that are not on the harbour front and cost half as much.

Practicalities

The old town is pedestrianised in large part and free to walk. The Fortezza charges admission. Cars are best left in the car parks on the edge; the streets inside are narrow, one-way and awkward. Early morning is the time to photograph it without people in the frame.