Knossos

This has to be one of the most over-hyped, and yet in practice really rather mediocre ancient monuments I've ever visited. Happily, you're safe from ever having to visit Knossos, which is the palace / capital city of the Minoan King Minos, unless you happen to be visiting North Crete. It's very near the Cretean capital, Heraklion (or Iraklio, if you're Greek), about a 10 to 15 minute bus ride out from the city's main bus station. One of the cheif reasons why we chose this particular destination, as opposed to one of the myriad other Mediterreanean options open to us as package holiday makers, was that Crete was the seat of the Minoan civilization, which ...  Read the complete review

On a trip to Crete in 2008 we visited Knossos. My son had just finished KS2 at primary school and they had done a lot of work on Greek Myths and he was particularly keen to visit the site. Having a child keen to visit ancient remains is an opportunity not to be missed so I booked our visit! The Palace of Knossos is on a huge site showing a very complicated building plan. It is easy to see how the legend of the Labyrinth and the Minotaur came about. Bulls did used to run inside the palace on festival days and it seems that the Greek word for Labyrinth is very close to a word for the two-headed axe symbol which appears a lot around the ...  Read the complete review

As a Classics graduate, I love going on holiday to Greece and when I ended up in Crete this year, a trip to Knossos was high up on my to-do list. Knossos was a Minoan palace and centre of the Minoan world, but was excavated fairly recently (1900) by the British archaeologist Arthur Evans. In Greek mythology, Knossos was home of King Minos and is also home to the myth of the half-human, half-bull figure, the Minotaur. Knossos is situated near the northern coast of Crete, near the major Cretan town of Heraklion. If you're staying in a touristy area of Crete, there is a good chance that you'll be able to book a trip to Knossos through a local tour ...  Read the complete review

Today I want to tell you why Europe is called Europe, come with me to Crete, to the Palace of Knossòs (stress on the second syllable) to be precise, and I’ll tell you the myth and also some others which you may already have heard or read about but maybe don’t associate with this Greek island. We’re in the Bronze Age, in the third millenium BC , one day Zeus, the leader of the gods, who was born on Crete, fell in love with the Phoenician princess Europa (aha!), he transmogrified into a snow-white bull and appeared in front of the maiden who was struck by its beauty and climbed on its back. The bull ran into the water and once safe at sea revealed its true ...  Read the complete review