Travel Guide
The historic centre – A must visit!
The area around today’s old town was already inhabited 5,000 years ago. While one legend claims that the original settling, then called Kydonia, was founded by Kydon, the son of Hermes and Akakallis, King Minos’ daughter, the ancient Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily declared that the city was founded by King Minos himself.
In the area of Kastelli Hill, the citadel of Chania harbour, at the archaeological excavation site of ancient Kydonia, ceramic sherds and other finds have been discovered that date from the Neolithic to the Late Minoan period. The site was recently added to the UNESCO World Heritage list of Minoan Palatial Centres in Greece.
Under Venetian occupation from the mid 13th to the mid 17th century, the city was called ‘La Canea’, while the Ottomans later called it Hanya and declared it the island’s capital.
It was only in 1912 that Chania joined the Kingdom of Greece, after a lengthy fight against Turkish rule. The individual architectural styles of the Ottoman and Venetian powers are evident in the old town, including several hamams built around 1645, alongside the famous ‘Mosque of Hasan Kucuk’ (named after the first Turkish military commander of the town). While the hamams and mosque are no longer used for their original purpose, some now house interesting art exhibitions and are used for other cultural events, while one has become a popular restaurant.
Under Venetian rule, the iconic lighthouse was built to protect the city from incoming pirates… and the Ottoman invaders. However, having failed to keep the Turkish at bay, the lighthouse was left in disrepair under Ottoman rule, only the base of the original Venetian building now remains.
Between 1821 and 1828 (during the Greek War of Independence), the island was the scene of repeated hostilities. Crete was subsequently left out of the new Greek state established under the London Protocol of 1830. The current lighthouse was was reconstructed by the Egyptians during the period 1830-40, when its administration by Mehmet Ali, the regent of Egypt, was confirmed in the Convention of Kütahya of 1833 to suppress the local uprising. The island remained under Egyptian control until 1840, when it was restored to full Ottoman authority.
Chania’s Venetian Harbour otherwise remains in all its glory, flanked by the Maritime museum of Crete to the west and the 16th century shipyards – Arsenalia – to the east. The old arsenals today house The Centre for Mediterranean Architecture , which hosts conferences, events and exhibitions.
The renowned Municipal Market (Agora) was opened in 1913 and is known as ‘the heart of the city’. In 1980, the market hall, which was modelled on the covered market of Marseilles and built on the site of a bastion of the Venetian fortification wall, is a listed building under the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. Today, it is still a working market, with stalls selling home made local delicacies, cheese, fresh fish and meat, fragrant herbs and spices as well as other Cretan staples and the local ‘firewater’, called ‘Raki’. There are also nowadays stalls selling local crafts and sea sponges. The Agora is currently undergoing renovations but is expected to open again in the near future.
- The old Etz Hayyim Synagogue
The building dates to the 14th -15th centuries and was originally a Venetian Catholic church, located in the heart of the town’s small, centuries-old Jewish neighbourhood, ‘Evraiki‘, behind the harbour-front. After the Ottoman conquest of Crete in 1669, the building was acquired by Chania’s Jewish community, who then converted it into a synagogue.
Having stood abandoned for almost 50 years following the end of the Second World War, Chania resident, Nikos Stavroulakis (an artist, writer, academic and founding director of the Jewish Museums of Athens and Thessaloniki) wanted to rebuild and revive Etz Hayyim Synagogue after surveying extensive earthquake damage caused to the building in 1995.
Thanks to his efforts, Etz Hayyim was added to the prestigious list of the world’s “100 Most Endangered Sites” of international cultural concern by the World Monuments Fund and Nikos acquired the funding to fully restore it. After 3 years of restoration work, the synagogue was officially rededicated on 10 October,1999.
Near the Etz Hayyim Synagogue you will find a popular – open air – cocktail bar (Sinagogi), which was established in the ruins of another synagogue, while ‘Taverna Ela‘, another open air venue, is housed in an old Jewish soap factory.
We highly recommend a stroll through the maze of narrow streets of this beautiful historic town centre, one of the oldest continuously populated places in Europe!
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