Activities

• Explore Rethymno's old town, with its cobbled streets lined by pastel-coloured buildings, Ottoman-era minarets and Italianate churches and fountains. The picturesque harbour is guarded by an imposing 16th-century Venetian fortress
  
  
• Book an Avli cooking lesson - you choose a starter, a salad, a main course and a dessert, and cook the food under the guidance of the chef. Afterwards, you eat what you've cooked - highly recommended
  
  
• Wine taste in Avli Fusion Enoteca – their cellar is one of the largest in Greece, with more than 400 different labels. When we visited, their top 2 recommendations were a Magiko Vuono red from 2003, and a Roussan Nostos white from Manoussakis
  
  
• Go scuba diving. Kalypso Diving Centre arrange transfers from Rethymno to their base at Plakias on the south coast, and offer organised trips and half-day beginner courses
  
  
• Visit the 16th-century Moni Arkadiou (Arkadi Monastery) with its lovely Venetian-baroque church, 23km southeast of Rethymno, in the foothills of Mount Idi (Psiloritis)
  
  
• Head for Preveli on the south coast, where you can lie on a stunning beach with a palm grove where the river meets the sea. On a hillside overhead, the 17th-century Preveli Monastery has a beatiful cloistered courtyard, church and small museum
  
  
• With more time, you could continue west to the 14th-century Frangokastello Venetian fortress, perched above the sands

Further afield, but also feasible as day trips, you can:

• Hike the dramatic 18km limestone Samaria Gorge, descending from the White Mountains down to the village of Agia Roumeli on the south coast. Wear good hiking boots and take plenty of water
  
  
• Drive west along the coast (60km) to explore Chania, with its Venetian-era fishing harbour ringed with cafes and tavernas. Check out the Archaeological Museum, housed in a former church, plus the romantic cobbled alleys lined with arty boutiques and a market selling local handicrafts
  
  
• Drive east along the coast (79km) to Heraklion. Explore the pedestrianised old town, and visit the excellent Archaeological Museum (partially closed but the temporary exhibition is well worth seeing) and the Crete Historical Museum