The finest collection of Minoan art and artifacts in the world. This is the single best reason to spend a day in Iraklion. The museum holds almost everything excavated from Knossos and the major Minoan sites across Crete: the famous bull-leaping fresco, the Snake Goddess figurines, the Phaistos Disc, and thousands of seal stones, Linear A tablets, and clay vessels that document 2,000 years of Minoan civilisation.
The museum reopened after a decade-long renovation in 2023 with a completely reorganised layout that is much easier to follow. Allow at least two hours; three if you read the labels.