Chania; Thursday, 30 July, 2020

My last day on Crete and time to hit the museums. After a little bit of a lie-in and a final breakfast in the hotel I headed out into the city.

First stop, just opposite the cathedral, was the Folklore museum – which shows what life would have been like for a Cretan living in Chania in years gone by.

From there I walked next door to the impressive archaeological museum which houses a large number of artifacts found across the city on various digs that have taken place – including several large mosaics and the usual collection of ancient Greek and Roman pottery.

From the Archaeological museum I walked down through the harbour to the Maritime museum to have a look round that. This is a slightly weird museum, if only for their treatment of their collection of fish specimens. For some reason they’ve applied googly eyes to all of the fish, making them all look a little surprised to see visitors and taking away some of the menace from the face of the sharks. The museum also houses an excellent model of the old harbour and the Venetian and Byzantine fortifications around the city, as well as models on the Venetian shipyards as well as the usual collection of models of ships.

I stopped off at one of the harbourside restaurants for my final meal in Crete and took in the last of the views of the harbour, before heading back into the centre of town and my final stop of the trip – the Minoan World 3D museum and 9D Cinema. I’m not quite certain since when fans and water jets count as dimensions, but it was all good fun in a delightfully tacky way.

From the museum it was a short walk back to the hotel where I collected my bags and waited for my taxi transfer back to the airport and my flight home.