The 10 Best Specialty Museums in Heraklion Prefecture, Crete

Kazantzakis Museum pays tribute to the important intellectual, author, thinker, philosopher, politician and traveler Nikos Kazantzakis. The Museum holds manuscripts and notes by the author; samples of his correspondence with major thinkers, politicians and authors of his time; first editions of his works in Greek and other languages; rare photographic material; souvenirs from his travels; personal effects; models, costumes and other material from theatre productions of his works in Greece and abroad; portraits and sculptures of the author; dozens of foreign-language editions of his works from all over the world, all a legacy that brings alive the memory of Nikos Kazatzakis and promotes his work and personality. The Nikos Kazantzakis Museum has quite literally become a site of worldwide intellectual pilgrimage. Every day, visitors arrive from all four corners of the globe, bearing witness to the lasting relevancy of the word expressed by the great Cretan, universal author and thinker.

Welcome my friend..! to the place of tradition, history and legend knowledge, philosophy and poetry..!!! Welcome my friend..! to the place of olive-tree, raki and wine drinking, eating and initiation..!!!

Just 15 km from Heraklion, at the historical village of Krousonas is located the Museum of Greek folk music, musical instruments, research and documentation with the characteristic name "THIRATHEN" ( thyrathen pedia = classical education education in Byzantium who had secular nature). In a renovated traditional house, where the sounds of nature pollinate the traditional instruments and spawn ever insuperable melodies, reserves to the visitor a trip to the charm of the music. One of the purposes of the museum is the local society's acquaintance with Greek traditional music in its entirety and its familiarity with the traditional instruments initial of the local ones, and then those of the neighbouring countries. The Museum's ambitions include the emergence of a cradle of culture through a variety of festivities and actions based on traditional music. An additional goal is the creation of the center for research and documentation of our musical tradition.

The Cretan open- air Museum "LYCHNOSTATIS" is located at Hersonissos, by the sea- side. It consists of four main collections: Nature & Flora Collection, with gardens of fruit- trees, aromatic herbs, cactus, shrubs and plants, stones and minerals of Crete. Ethnographic Collection, with a presentation of Cretan traditional life .Art collection with works of folk artists exhibited in the Folk Artist's Gallery, the Open- Air Theatre and the Exhibitions' Room.Collection of pre-Industrial Technology with equipment used in the past. The Museum organizes a range of educational programs and its Audiovisual Department produces films, CD- ROM's, DVD' s presented daily in the Multimedia & Conference room. It has also a Museum-shop and a cafe. The Museum was nominated for the European Museum of the Year Award in 2010 and honoured by the University of Crete in 1997 for its ecological activities. "LYCHNOSTATIS" is open for a daily visit with a guided- tour, from (Saturday closed).

Just below the imposing Sacred peak of Psiloritis, in the village of Vorizia, Heraklion, along the Ancient Sacred Road of Gortina Idaios Andros where the Sacred Procession ascended to the city of the mountain gods to worship the divine infant of Spring Zeus the Kritogenis is the largest theme park of Crete

Thematic Park representing mans agony and struggle for survival through the centuries.