Heraklion

Heraklion needs 3 days: the Palace of Knossos, center of Minoan civilization and the origin of the myth of the Minotaur and the labyrinth, on one, the Archaeological Museum with the world's largest Minoan collection on another, and an excursion to the island's southern beaches or the Samariá Gorge on the third. April-June and September-October avoid the extreme heat of the Cretan summer. It's mid-priced for Greece. It was the center of Minoan civilization, Europe's first advanced civilization, which flourished over a thousand years before classical Athens, and Knossos, with its restored frescoes and labyrinthine layout of over 1,300 rooms, is Greece's most visited prehistoric archaeological site.