3 Best Sights in Palace of Phaistos, Crete

The first major monument visible is the Byzantine Basilica of Agios Titus, probably built on the remains of an older church. A soaring apse and two side chapels have been restored. Adjacent, is the Odeion, levelled by an earthquake and rebuilt by Emperor Trajan. Within the walls of the theatre are the 600 lines of the Law Code, engraved upon a wall tablet.

Crossing the road that bisects the site, the main attractions are the Praetorium, the palace of the Roman governor of Crete that dates back to the 2nd century AD, and the Nymphaeum, a public bath originally supplied by an aqueduct and adorned with statues.

Climb to the hilltop Acropolis for a view of the site; below you will see the evergreen plane tree that served as Zeus and Europa's mating-bed according to mythology. From this union, the three kings of Crete were produced: Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon.

The Palace of Phaistos was built around 1900 BC and rebuilt after a disastrous earthquake around 1650 BC. It was burned and abandoned in the wave of destruction that swept across the island around 1450 BC, though Greeks continued to inhabit the city until the 2nd century BC, when it was eclipsed by Roman Gortyna.

You enter the site by descending a flight of steps leading into the west court, then climb a grand staircase. From here you pass through the Propylon porch into a light well and descend a narrow staircase into the central court. Much of the southern and eastern sections of the palace have eroded away. But there are large pithoi still in place in the old storerooms. On the north side of the court the recesses of an elaborate doorway bear a rare trace: red paint in a diamond pattern on a white ground. A passage from the doorway leads to the north court and the northern domestic apartments, now roofed and fenced off. The Phaistos Disk was found in 1903 in a chest made of mud brick at the northeast edge of the site and is now on display at the Archaeological Museum in Heraklion. East of the central court are the palace workshops, with a metalworking furnace fenced off. South of the workshops lie the southern domestic apartments, including a clay bath. From there, you have a memorable view across the Messara Plain.

Another Minoan settlement that was destroyed at the same time as Phaistos by Mycenean attackers is only a few miles away on the other side of the same hill. Ayia Triada was once thought to have been a summer palace for the rulers of Phaistos but is now believed to have consisted of a group of villas for nobility and a warehouse complex. Rooms in the villas were once paneled with gypsum slabs and decorated with frescoes: the two now hanging in the Archaeological Museum in Heraklion show a woman in a garden and a cat hunting a pheasant. Several other lovely pieces, including finely crafted vases, come from Ayia Triada and are now also on display in Heraklion, along with more Linear A tablets than at any other Minoan site. Though the complex was at one time just above the seashore, the view now looks across the extensive Messara Plain to the Lybian Sea in the distance.