The old town of Rethimno is the most intact of any Cretan city, a layered accretion of Venetian loggia, Ottoman wooden balconies, narrow alleyways, and minarets that escaped the damage that reduced parts of Heraklion and Chania to rubble in the Second World War. The architecture is a direct record of the city's successive rulers — the Venetians who built the stone foundations, the Ottomans who added the projecting wooden upper storeys, and the Greek residents who have painted and repaired it all in the decades since.
Wandering without a map is the best approach. The main streets around the Neradje Mosque lead to the harbour; the streets leading south from the fortress take you through the quieter parts of the old town where locals actually live. Look for the Venetian loggia on Arkadíou Street and the ornate portals on some of the older buildings — carved stone dating from the 16th and 17th centuries. The old town is roughly triangular, bounded by the fortress to the northwest, the harbour to the north, and the modern city to the south.