20 Beautiful Villages in Crete

The coastal resorts are where Crete sells itself; the villages are where it lives. Inland, the island is a network of settlements strung along olive terraces and mountain plateaux, most of them within an hour of the north coast and almost none of them on a coach route. The twenty below are worth the drive, and each one has a specific reason to go rather than a general one.

All driving times are one way from Rethymno, which is the most central base on the island. Regions are given as the prefecture the village sits in.

All twenty, by region and drive time

Village	Region	From Rethymno	Altitude	Known for
Maroulas	Rethymno	15 min	220 m	Venetian and Ottoman tower houses
Margarites	Rethymno	25 min	300 m	Pottery, still on the wheel
Argyroupoli	Rethymno	25 min	260 m	Springs, plane trees, ancient Lappa
Kournas	Chania	25 min	220 m	Village above Crete's only freshwater lake
Spili	Rethymno	30 min	430 m	The 25-spout Venetian lion fountain
Vamos	Chania (Apokoronas)	40 min	210 m	Restored stone houses, agrotourism co-operative
Axos	Rethymno	40 min	500 m	Psiloritis foothills, Byzantine churches
Thronos	Rethymno (Amari)	40 min	500 m	Frescoed basilica over the Amari valley
Meronas	Rethymno (Amari)	45 min	400 m	Kalergi mansions, 14th-century frescoes
Anogeia	Rethymno	45 min	740 m	Lyra music, resistance history, shepherds
Chora Sfakion	Chania	1 h 15	Sea level	Gateway to the roadless south-west
Archanes	Heraklion	1 h 15	380 m	Wine country, award-winning restoration
Zaros	Heraklion	1 h 15	350 m	Springs, trout, Rouvas Gorge
Anopoli	Chania (Sfakia)	1 h 40	600 m	Plateau above Loutro, Aradaina bridge
Milia	Chania	2 h	500 m	Abandoned settlement rebuilt off-grid
Kapetaniana	Heraklion (Asterousia)	2 h	750 m	Mount Kofinas, the Libyan Sea below
Loutro	Chania (Sfakia)	Boat from Chora Sfakion	Sea level	No road in or out
Elos	Chania	2 h 15	550 m	Chestnut villages; festival in October
Kritsa	Lasithi	2 h 15	375 m	Weaving, Panagia Kera frescoes
Mochlos	Lasithi	2 h 30	Sea level	Fishing village with a Minoan islet offshore

Rethymno region: the villages you can reach before lunch

Maroulas — 15 minutes

The closest, and the most overlooked. Maroulas has a dozen Venetian and Ottoman tower houses, olive presses built into the rock, and a scale that makes an hour enough. Go for the architecture; stay for a coffee in the square.

Margarites — 25 minutes

The pottery village of Crete. A dozen active studios line two narrow streets, and the potters still throw shapes that descend directly from Minoan storage jars alongside modern work. Watch a wheel, buy something that will not survive your hand luggage, and drink coffee under the plane trees looking down the valley. It is the core stop on our Timeless Crete: Villages & Monasteries tour.

Argyroupoli — 25 minutes

Built on ancient Lappa, and split into an upper village of Venetian doorways and a lower one where spring water pours out of the hillside under enormous plane trees, runs through channels, drives a couple of old mills and keeps the tavernas' trout alive. Ten degrees cooler than the coast in August.

Spili — 30 minutes

A green village on the flank of Mount Kedros, built around a Venetian fountain whose twenty-five carved lion heads pour cold mountain water into a long trough. Everyone fills a bottle. The cobbled lanes above the main street are full of bougainvillea and shops selling mountain herbs and olive wood. Spili is a stop on both the Cretan Nature & Village Journey and the Botanical Tours of Crete.

Axos — 40 minutes

On the road up to Psiloritis, with several small Byzantine churches and a view down the Mylopotamos valley. Quiet, working, and a good place to stop between Margarites and Anogeia.

Thronos — 40 minutes

The Amari valley is the loveliest inland region in Crete and Thronos sits at the top of it, in a basilica built on an early Christian mosaic floor, with 14th-century frescoes inside and the whole valley below. Mount Psiloritis fills the eastern horizon.

Meronas — 45 minutes

Also in the Amari, and the seat of the Kalergi family. The church of the Panagia holds frescoes from the same century and a Venetian-influenced facade. The valley road between Thronos, Meronas and Gerakari in spring, when the cherry trees are out, is one of the best drives on the island.

Anogeia — 45 minutes

The most singular village in Crete: 740 m up on the flank of Psiloritis, rebuilt after the Germans razed it in 1944, and the home of Cretan lyra music. The dialect preserves ancient Greek words that have vanished elsewhere. It is a shepherd town, and the mountain culture is not staged. For the working version of it, our Shepherd for a Day experience puts you in a sheepfold making cheese rather than watching someone else do it.

Chania region

Kournas — 25 minutes

A small village on the slope above Lake Kournas, Crete's only natural freshwater lake. Tavernas up here look down on the water; the lake itself is ten minutes below. Combined with the springs at Argyroupoli on our Lake Kournas & Argyroupoli half-day.

Vamos — 40 minutes

The administrative centre of the Apokoronas, and the site of one of Greece's earliest agrotourism co-operatives: villagers restored their own stone houses in the 1990s rather than sell them. The result is a working village with rooms to rent, a good taverna and an olive-oil culture it will explain to you at length.

Chora Sfakion — 1 hour 15

Small, austere, and the most useful village on the south coast: the ferry port for Loutro, Agia Roumeli and Marmara, and the end of the Imbros Gorge day. Sfakia has its own history of insurrection and its own cheese pies, and the harbour front tavernas do both well.

Anopoli — 1 hour 40

A plateau village at 600 m above Loutro, with a statue of Daskalogiannis in the square and the road on to the Aradaina bridge — 138 m above the gorge, and a bungee jump if you are that way inclined. Start point for the Aradaina Gorge descent.

Milia — 2 hours

An abandoned 17th-century settlement in the western mountains, rebuilt in the 1980s as an off-grid guesthouse: solar power, stone rooms, no televisions, and food grown on the terraces below. Reached by a track through chestnut forest.

Loutro — boat from Chora Sfakion

There is no road. Loutro is a horseshoe of white houses around a bay, reachable only by ferry or on foot along the coastal path, which means no cars, no coaches and no day-trip traffic. It is the quietest place on Crete you can sleep in.

Elos — 2 hours 15

The heart of the chestnut villages of the far west, in deep shade under trees that are centuries old. The chestnut festival in the third week of October is the reason most people come; the rest of the year it is a green, cool, almost alpine corner of an otherwise arid island.

Heraklion region

Archanes — 1 hour 15

In the wine country south of Heraklion, and the best-restored village on the island — it has won European awards for it. Neoclassical facades, a large square full of good tavernas, several serious wineries within a few kilometres, and the Minoan cemetery at Phourni on the hill above.

Zaros — 1 hour 15

At the foot of Psiloritis, built around freshwater springs that supply the island's bottled water and feed trout farms you can eat at. The Rouvas Gorge and the Byzantine monastery of Agios Nikolaos start from the lake above the village, and the walking here is among the best in central Crete.

Kapetaniana — 2 hours

High in the Asterousia range at 750 m, looking down at the Libyan Sea. The village is the base for the climb up Mount Kofinas and for the hermitages cut into the cliffs below. Remote, sparsely inhabited, and worth the road.

Lasithi region

Kritsa — 2 hours 15

Built amphitheatrically up a mountainside above Agios Nikolaos, and famous for weaving: women here still work hand looms, and the textiles hanging in the lanes are made rather than imported. Just below the village, the church of Panagia Kera holds the finest surviving Byzantine frescoes in Crete.

Mochlos — 2 hours 30

A tiny fishing village on the north-east coast with four tavernas on the water and a Minoan settlement on the islet fifty metres offshore, which was joined to the land in the Bronze Age. Nothing happens here, which is the point.

Practical notes

• Drive slowly. Mountain roads are narrow, unfenced and shared with goats. Sound the horn on blind corners; everyone does.
• Dress modestly in churches and monasteries, Arkadi included. Shoulders and knees covered.
• Buy from the village. Olive oil, mountain herbs, honey, raki and textiles bought directly keep these crafts alive, and are cheaper and better than the equivalents on the coast.
• Go in the morning or the evening. Between one and five in summer, villages shut and sleep, and so should you.