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The Old Town

Rethimnon is a thoroughly enjoyable place to wander around. Although much of it has succumbed to the commercial reality of fast-food outlets and supermarkets, the buildings themselves have changed little, and there's still the odd corner where English or German are not automatically spoken, a few curious old stores and craftsmen working away in their traditional get-up of high boots, baggy trousers and black headscarves .

The monuments described below don't amount to a great deal on paper, but walking between them is often every bit as interesting as getting to them. The streets themselves are a fascinating mix of generations of architecture, the Venetian buildings indistinguishable most of the time from the Turkish and all of them adapted and added to by later generations. Ornate wooden doors and balconies are easily spotted, ancient stonework crops up everywhere, and there are a number of elaborate Turkish fountains hidden in obscure comers: one by the Kara Pasha mosque, another below the south side of the fortress at the comer of Smimis and Koronaiou, two more on Patriarhou Grigoriou leading up from here towards the Public Garden.