Crete Excursions

[sea mom]

Can anybody recommend any excursions or tour companies for Crete.

 

Thanks in advance.

[cruisemom42]

Crete is a big island with 4 cruise ports. Which one will you be stopping at?

[jas283a]

We actually did Crete on our own and it was pretty easy. We were in Heraklion and did a Hop On/Hop Off bus to take us to all the sites and spent most of the time in Knossos and the Archeological museum in Heraklion. You could hire a guide, but we didn’t need to. Everything was translated into English. 

[IWantToLiveOverTheSea]

If you're (still?) going to Souda Bay for Chania, I can help.  Beautiful, fun city.

[Petenviv]

On 3/6/2022 at 11:58 PM, jas283a said:

We actually did Crete on our own and it was pretty easy. We were in Heraklion and did a Hop On/Hop Off bus to take us to all the sites and spent most of the time in Knossos and the Archeological museum in Heraklion. You could hire a guide, but we didn’t need to. Everything was translated into English. 

Thanks, yes we are going to Heraklion, and I particularly want to see Knossos so I'll look up the HOHO bus.

[smmountaingal]

On 6/10/2022 at 10:11 AM, IWantToLiveOverTheSea said:

If you're (still?) going to Souda Bay for Chania, I can help.  Beautiful, fun city.

I would like recommendations from Souda Bay area.  We will be in port October 4th.

 

 

[Familygirl814]

On 6/10/2022 at 10:11 AM, IWantToLiveOverTheSea said:

If you're (still?) going to Souda Bay for Chania, I can help.  Beautiful, fun city.

I'm also looking for recommendations for this port! I'll be there in October as well.

[IWantToLiveOverTheSea]

I can’t comment on Oceania excursions because I didn’t do any.  I considered the Arkadi & Rethymno excursion because I wanted to see the lighthouse in Rethymno (about an hour from Souda).  But I had discovered that Chania was a beautiful city and didn’t want to risk not having enough time for it.  I briefly considered renting a car or finding a private tour.  But I really enjoy exploring on my own, so in the end I decided to stay in Chania and do my own thing.   We were there mid-May (last month) and docked in Souda Bay, which is about a 15 minute ride from Chania.  A shuttle bus was provided from outside the port (maybe one city block walk ship to bus) to an area right next to Chania’s City Market building.  (Market was closed for renovation. Stores nearby (brick & mortar) were too, but it was Sunday). We were there 8 – 5 and shuttle ran 8:30 to 4. From shuttle drop it was a 10 or so minute walk “down” to the waterfront. I had downloaded a map on my phone at home from maps.me (which once loaded, can be used without Wifi) but forgot to use it.  But I also had photographed a map of Chania from a travel book I got from home, and picked up a map from the tourist rep outside the ship that morning.   (In a pinch, the Library on Oceania ships probably have a Lonely Planet with a map that you can photograph, or maybe google/print one out on the Oceania at Sea printer. Or you can look at the big map displayed near the shuttle stop, then maybe follow someone.)  Once at the water, you can go to the right (marina, warehouses, old city walls, start of breakwater to Venetian lighthouse) or left (cafes, Naval Museum, fort).  I walked the breakwater to the lighthouse – closed, but the views of the city were charming, and changed as I walked.  The lighthouse walk was hot but reasonably easy and more or less smooth as long as you kind of paid attention to where you walked.  You can walk the mostly upper walk or mostly bottom walk; both were around same effort, but top one a tiny bit stressful.  Toward the end there’s about a 15 foot stretch (no matter which level you start out on,  I think) where you have to step over some rocks with nothing to hold onto.  Good shoes are highly recommended.  My balance isn’t the best, but I managed.  If you don’t want to go over that part, just turn around.  It’s probably worth the walk that far just to see the city from the water, snow in the background, lighthouse ahead of you, etc.  

 

In the city, the Splantzia area (east, near water) was most interesting to me as a photographer.  But in the west, the Tophanes area sounded good too.  See if you can find the Old Town of Chania map here: www.chania.gr  We picked this map up outside the ship from the tourist rep Oceania (or the city) arranged.  In my travels (not all day, but at least 3 hours or so) I saw remnants of town walls, old warehouses, little church decorations outside homes, a church with tops of two widely different styles, people at cafes, people inside churches, graffiti, etc. See my photos with captions here: https://pbase.com/roothy123/chania_crete_on_sirena_may_2022&page=all    (Make sure “All” button is pushed so you see all photos.)

 

If you're adventuresome you could rent a car.  There are monasteries in the peninsula near Souda Bay that sounded interesting to me  (though the best requires a long walk to get to it) and the Allied War Cemetery is out that way too. Chania and Crete have public buses (e-KTEL) too, and Segway tours (company has good website), and I think a HoHo bus, though I don’t know if that worthwhile if you want to see a lot of the old part of the city.  Much of it is car-free, so you may end up walking more than you anticipated.  There are, of course, shops, museums, churches, etc.  And I've read that most people like Knossos, though from Chania it's not very close.  But we saw tons of ruins and very old places on our cruise (Ephesus, Paphos, Masada in Israel, Rhodes) so I wasn't yearning to see more in the Chania/Souda area!  

 

Enjoy beautiful Crete!

[cruisemom42]

If anyone is considering wandering Chania on their own, another worthwhile stop would be the small but lovely archaeological museum that is housed in an old Turkish baths building.  It's worth the modest entry fee to see the pretty architecture inside, not to mention the finds, most of which come from nearby Greek and Roman archaeological sites.

 

It is located right on the "main" street that heads down to the waterfront.