Rethimno is the third largest city on Crete, on the northern coast between Heraklion and Chania, and it has by some measure the best-preserved old town of the three. The Venetian harbour — complete with its 16th-century lighthouse — is genuinely beautiful, and the narrow streets of the old city behind it are a dense tangle of Venetian loggia, Ottoman mosques and minarets, and overhanging wooden balconies that together tell the layered story of Cretan history more eloquently than any museum.
The Fortezza, the Venetian fortress dominating the headland above the harbour, is one of the largest Venetian castles in existence. The views from its walls across the harbour and out to the Aegean are excellent, and the interior — a large open space with the ruins of the Ibrahim Han Mosque at its centre — gives a sense of the scale of Venetian ambition in Crete. The Archaeological Museum below, in a converted Ottoman building, has good finds from the region's Minoan sites.
The Neradje Mosque is the most intact Ottoman monument in the old town, a 17th-century structure converted from a Venetian church whose minaret still stands. The beach stretches for several kilometres east of the old town. Rethimno is less developed than Heraklion and has more character than many Cretan beach resorts — it retains a genuine town life separate from the tourist economy, and the restaurants around the harbour, while not cheap, are among the best on the island.