It’s hard to believe, but this is the last full day of my trip. I had hoped to make it even further east, but I’ll have to save that for my next voyage to Crete. This is the night before the full August moon, and as luck (and timing) would have it, I visited the […]

Today I forged eastward again to visit the site of Dreros, known from excavations earlier in the 20th century to have flourished between the Geometric and the late Hellenistic periods. I met up with the French-Greek team working there—led by Alexandre Farnoux and Vassiliki Zografakis—three weeks into a brand-new five-year project. The team’s goals are […]

Logic would dictate that I continue making my way eastward, but the opportunity for a second meeting with Elpida Hadjidakis at Falasarna lured me back west yesterday. I’ll be reporting separately on our conversation regarding a groundbreaking discovery she made at another site. Today, I was delighted also to meet again with Athanasia Kanta, director […]

In 2007, a team of Belgian archaeologists–led by Jan Driessen, general director, and Ilse Schoep, codirector–started digging on Kephali Hill near the village of Sissi, where they have found a Minoan settlement located two and a half miles east of Malia. The team, many members of which also previously dug at Malia, is hoping the […]

I am now reporting from the eastern part of Crete, where the landscape becomes drier and rockier, and the roads that lie along the shimmering sea taunt drivers as they twist, turn, and snake, hugging each mountain’s curves and doubling the amount of time it takes to get from one village to the next.

All roads on Crete eventually lead back to Iraklion, so here I am again. Spent yesterday in transit and organizing my photos and notes. Today, I saw another important salvage dig and toured the Archaeological Museum.

Yesterday I spent the day in Chania before boarding the 8:30 a.m. bus to Falasarna, one of the westernmost points on Crete. Here, a team under the direction of veteran archaeologist Elpida Hadjidakis has unearthed a “closed” Hellenistic harbor in an unlikely place—dry land. I caught up with Hadjidakis and the team on the first […]

Over the past two and a half decades, archaeologists have excavated the acropolis, city, and necropolis of ancient Eleutherna under the direction of famous archaeologist Nicholas Stampolidis. Occupation dates from the Early Bronze Age (ca. 3000 B.C.) to the Middle Ages (12th-13th century A.D.). Although the cemetery is filled with skeletons, the tranquil site is […]

Today I’m staying at a hotel on the beach just outside Rethymno, near the ancient city of Eleutherna. I’ll get a full tour of the site from the archaeologists tomorrow. In the meantime, they’ve been kind enough to show me the environs. The unmarked, rocky roads that hug the surrounding hills–the northern foothills of Mt. […]

Traveling west across Crete, the island’s character changes markedly, its landscape becoming more lush and forgiving, and its seaside towns sleepier and dreamier than bustling Iraklion. The Labrys Dance Group from the Cretan Association of New York, under the direction of Nikos Zoulakis, performed a couple of nights ago. Chania’s picturesque Firkas Fortress, built in […]

I hope to contact the British School archaeologists working at Knossos while I’m staying in Iraklion next week, but in the meantime, I’ve decided to enjoy the iconic site as a tourist. I’ve visited several times over the years, marveling equally at the romance of the finds–deemed the improbable, mythical “Minotaur’s labyrinth” by its most […]

Although the Minoans are best known as seafarers, excavations at the site of Zominthos, nestled in a plateau on Mt. Ida, Crete’s highest mountain, have shown that they were also highlanders. This important second-millennium B.C. site, located about 1,200 meters above sea level, lies on the ancient route between Knossos and the sacred Ideon Cave, […]

At any given time, there are about 20 salvage excavations being conducted in Iraklion, the largest city on Crete. Archaeologist Liana Starida is the director of all of the digs throughout the city. She also oversees the reconstruction of its ancient walls and fortresses. Over the past 20 years, salvage excavations have contributed greatly to […]

East of Iraklion lies the village of Elounda, from which visitors can sail to the island of Spinaloga. Although it is small enough to walk the perimeter in half an hour or so, the island boasts a rich and complicated history, which began with a Roman settlement that dates from 67 B.C. to A.D. 395. […]

Crete may be best known for its ancient Minoan civilization, but the port city of Iraklion is also famous for its well-preserved Venetian walls and fortresses.

I arrived in Athens only yesterday, but have already found it much changed since my last visit in 1997. It is a markedly “post-Olympic” city, with a new airport, a new currency (the Euro having replaced the drachma), and a new sense of how to manage visitors at its major tourist destinations, including marked paths […]