3 Days in Agios Nikolaos

Locals just call it i limni, "the lake". It is a small, round, spring-fed sinkhole, 137 m across and 48.8 m deep, that was freshwater until the sea got in. A canal dug by the French army between 1905 and 1907 joined it to the harbour, and the rim is now ringed with cafes. The legend says Athena bathed in it. The geology is less glamorous: a collapsed cave in breccia, on a fault line that cuts through the town.

Walk the loop around the edge, then climb to the small park above the water for the panoramic view. The cafes on the rim are overpriced, so have a coffee for the view and eat elsewhere. The town gathers here at midnight on Orthodox Easter for fireworks.

Ten minutes uphill from the lake, on Konstantinou Palaiologou street, is the museum that explains everything you are about to drive past. It collects finds from the region around Agios Nikolaos, and it is small enough to finish in an hour.

This is the rainy-morning stop and the one to do before the countryside, because it sets up Lato and the cave on day two.

The name means "long thorn", given by the Venetians who laid the foundation stone of the fortress in 1579, and the ancient name is Kalidon. The Ottomans took it in 1715, and from 1904 Crete used it as a place for people with leprosy. It grew into a small town with a school, shops and families, until the hospital closed in 1957. It is the second most visited site on Crete.

The walk is a loop of alleys, the old hospital buildings and the fortress walls, and it takes about an hour. The boat from Plaka is only five to ten minutes. The Ministry of Culture lists the site open all winter, 08:30 to 15:30, closed Tuesdays, which is why the island comes before lunch today. The boats are the part we couldn't confirm: the main cooperative's booking pages end in October, though winter tours from Plaka exist. Phone an operator the day before.

Plaka is the village directly across the water from Spinalonga, 18 km from Agios Nikolaos and 28 minutes by car. In Victoria Hislop's novel The Island it is where the story of a family begins, and the fish tavernas along the front all know it.

Eat after the island. Order a Greek salad, a plate of fried fish or a grilled catch by the kilo, and ask what the boat captain thinks of tomorrow's weather. In November only a few tavernas stay open, so choose the one with people at the tables.

Elounda is on the road home, 5 km south of Plaka and 12 km north of Agios Nikolaos. It is a small fishing port that became a resort, with a square, a harbour and a handful of sandy beaches within walking distance. It is the other base in this guide.

Do the short walk along the causeway to the sunken city of Olous, the original Elounda: you can still see walls under the water on a calm day, and further on there is a stone storehouse, a few old windmills and a canal with fishing boats. In November it is empty and good for it.

Ammoudi is the small beach on the north-west side of town, a short walk from the lake along the shore. In November it is a place to watch the light fade over the bay. The sun sets around 5:15pm early in the month, so go at 4:45pm and walk back along the harbour as the lights come on.

Kitroplatia is the harbour-side strip behind the lake, and it is where the town's meze restaurants cluster, side by side with places aimed at visitors. Meze here means a table of small plates: dakos, fried cheese, greens, snails if you are brave, grilled meat, and a carafe of tsikoudia (grape spirit) that arrives with the bill.

Many seasonal places close in November, so walk the strip first and pick one with Greek families at the tables.

The Church of Panagia Kera stands about a kilometer before Kritsa, 9 km from Agios Nikolaos, and from the road it looks like a plain stone church among olive trees. Inside, every wall is painted. The central nave and dome date from the 13th century, the side aisles were built and painted in the early to mid 14th century, and the bright colors belong to the Palaiologan Renaissance.

Three aisles, three stories: the Virgin in the middle, Saint Anne in the south with scenes from the life of Mary, and Saint Anthony in the north under a great Second Coming and Judgement Day. The church also has a tale of a stolen icon: a trader took the miraculous icon of the Virgin in 1498 and it ended up in Rome. Go at opening, when the light through the door is still low and the bus groups haven't arrived.

Lato sits on a saddle between two hills 10 km from Agios Nikolaos and 3 km north of Kritsa, with a view down to Mirabello Bay. It was a Dorian city-state, built mostly in the 5th and 4th centuries BC and destroyed around 200 BC. Its port, Lato pros Kamara, lies under the modern town you slept in, and Alexander the Great's admiral Nearchus was born at Lato.

Only a fenced part of the ruins is open to walk through, and not much stands higher than a wall, so the site is about the setting, and the setting is excellent. Wear shoes with grip.

Kritsa is built like an amphitheater on the Kastellos hill, 375 m up, 10 km from Agios Nikolaos. In the Middle Ages it was thought to be the largest village on Crete, and it was destroyed many times because it joined every Cretan revolt.

The main street sells textiles and souvenirs; ask where something was made. Walk up the side lanes for the views over the olive groves.

Eat early, around 11:15, because the cave won't wait. A taverna on the square or the main street will do a good dakos (barley rusk topped with tomato and cheese), lamb or a plate of greens and a spanakopita (spinach pie) straight from the oven. This is also where you can buy a bag of kalitsounia, small cheese pies that are sweet in Lasithi.

The cave at Psychro is the one Arthur Evans and David Hogarth identified with Dikte, the place where, in the version told by Apollodorus, Rhea gave birth to Zeus and hid him from his father, and the nymphs fed him on the milk of the goat Amalthea. Scholars still argue about whether it is the right cave.

The cave was closed from May 2024 for work on the walls, lighting and the stone path, and reopened on 29 May 2026. You park, climb a steep stone path to the mouth (allow about 15 minutes), then step down inside to a pool and lit stalactites. There is no lift. Wear sturdy shoes.

The Lasithi Plateau is a flat farming plain 840 m up, 11 km long and 6 km wide, ringed by mountains. It was once home to around 10,000 white-sailed wind pumps, built to a local design since the 1920s to irrigate the fields. Most were replaced by diesel and electric pumps, and the ones left are now more photo than farm.

The Venetians called the plateau a thorn in the heart of Venice, after its rebellions, and drove out the farmers for two centuries. Drive the ring road through Tzermiado and Agios Georgios, stop for the rows of sails, and be off the mountain by 4:30pm, before dark. Allow about 65 minutes for the drive down to town.

Back in Agios Nikolaos, go for a plain Cretan dinner: grilled lamb chops, a pan of moussaka (eggplant and minced meat under bechamel) or pastitsio (baked pasta with meat sauce) at a taverna a few streets off the harbour, and a glass of the house wine.

Share a plate of loukoumades (honey doughnuts) afterwards, then walk once around the lake in the dark.

The Toplou Monastery is a fortress as much as a monastery: thick walls, a tower and a name that means "the place of the cannon" (the top is Turkish for cannon). It was founded around the 14th century at the foot of the Itanos promontory, in a dry landscape with nothing else around it, and it is about 20 km east of Sitia by road.

Walk the courtyard and the museum rooms if open. Vai is 8 km further on.

Vai is the Greek word for palm, and it is a protected area with several thousand palms in a valley running down to a beach on the north-east corner of Crete. The palms are Phoenix theophrasti, the Cretan date palm, one of only two palm species native to the Mediterranean, and the forest is among Europe's only palm forests.

In summer it is a famously crowded beach. In November you get the opposite, an empty grove and a long sand beach. Walk the paths under the fronds and keep to the marked tracks, since the forest is protected.

The beach below the palms is about 23 km from Sitia and the sea is around 20°C in early November, so a swim is possible on a calm day. There will be no lifeguard, so stay shallow and respect the wind.

Back in Sitia, eat at the harbour or a street behind it. The town has about 11,000 people and has not seen mass tourism, which shows in the prices and the portions. Look for the sweet kalitsounia in a bakery.

Order a plate of the fish of the day or lamb with potatoes, and finish with a glass of tsikoudia.

Sitia is the end of the E75 road that starts here and runs to Vardo in Norway, and its harbour is a pleasant ten-minute stroll. Above it stands the fortress known as Kazarma, which overlooks the town.

Walk the waterfront and the lanes up to the fortress walls. Kazarma itself is closed from November to March, so enjoy it from outside. The Archaeological Museum of Sitia is open in winter, 08:30-15:30 and closed Tuesdays, 5 EUR (3 EUR reduced), with the last entry 20 minutes before closing. Then start the 73-minute drive back to Agios Nikolaos by 3pm, well before the light goes.