Heraklion (Crete Greece)

Heraklion (aka Iraklion) is the largest port city and capital of Crete Island, Greece. One of Greece's biggest cities, it has population around 175,000.

Heraklion is an important seaport and a ferry dock. Regularly scheduled ferries serve the routes to the Greek islands Ios, Paros, Mykonos, Rhodes and Santorini. There are also daily ferries to Piraeus-Athens (mainland Greece).

Among the most popular tourist sites near Heraklion are the ruins of the Palace of Minos (aka Knossos Palace). In Minoan times (3650-1450 BC) it was the largest settlement on Crete Island. Even though there is no archaeological evidence of it, Knossos may have had a port at Heraklion as early as 2000 BC.

The city's architecture is dominated by Venetian buildings, like Koules Fortress (Rocca al Mare), ramparts and arsenal. Around the city can be found several statues, sculptures and busts commemorating significant events and figures of Crete's history (El Greco, Nikos Kazantzakis, Eleftherios Venizelos, Vitsentzos Kornaros). Many fountains of the Venetian-era are also well preserved (Bembo, Palmeti, Priuli, Morosini, Sagredo.

In 2016, Port Heraklion had scheduled a total of 170 cruise ship calls and handled ~220,000 passengers-crew. The numbers were close to the port's 2015 statistics. The port expects in near future the passenger shipping traffic (both cruise and ferry) to increase due to the political situations in Turkey and Egypt. In 2016, almost all Mediterranean cruise companies canceled their scheduled calls at ports in Turkey and diverted their vessels to Greek seaports instead. In 2017, all major cruise companies (with big-sized liners) canceled their calls at Kusadasi - one of Turkey's largest resort destinations and cruise port to Ephesus (ancient Greek city). All ship calls were replaced with Greek islands, mainly to Rhodes and Santorini.

Greek Ports Association's General Assembly (held in late-January 2021) ranked Port Heraklion Greece's first in terms of cruise passenger volume. During the COVID crisis in 2020, the cruise port handled 24 ship calls and a total of 19998 tourists (~30% of all that visited Greece in 2020). In 2019, the port handled ~287000 cruisers.

Heraklion cruise terminal