Welcome to NowHeraklion - created by people who love Heraklion, for people who love Heraklion, the capital city of Crete, Greece. Thanks for your visit and enjoy our site!
Heraklion Summer Arts Festival
NowHeraklion on Facebook
Let's go to the Beach!
The Heraklion Summer Arts Festival provides patrons with countless events, including concerts, theatre, dance, and performances just for children. Most events are staged at the many open-air venues within the famous Venetian city walls. There is also a Film Festival running in parallel with a varied program of movies. We're hoping for another exciting program this year! Keep an eye on our festival page here
In addition to our website, we also have a popular Facebook page with over 12,000 followers which we update daily with Heraklion news, photos and events. We also post photo-albums of events that we attend and these include photos of Atheati Poli, an event held in the Lakkos area of the city, near the new Heraklion Cultural Centre. To follow us on Facebook simply click here and hit the "like" button - so easy!
There's no beach to speak of on the city coast-line of Heraklion but a No.6 bus from Freedom Square will get you to Ammoudara, a short trip to the west. This popular resort is situated on one long street with shops, restaurants, bars and cafés in abundance. Get to half way up before leaving the bus and then take one of the many side-streets for a short walk to the beach. And enjoy time on the large sandy beach anytime!
New Heraklion Cultural Centre
Peskesi Authentic Cretan Cuisine
The Minoistas Group
Heraklion City Council has announced the completion of stage one of construction of its impressive new Conference & Cultural Centre on Plastira avenue, within the Venetian Walls. Several theatres designed for events and meetings are ready, along with an impressive courtyard. There's also a new underground car park on 4 levels nearby with capacity for 230 vehicles. Keep an eye on our events page for more!
We're always glad to hear of new cafés and restaurants opening in town and one of the newest additions is Peskesi on Kapetan Haralampi, near the Cosmote showroom. The menu consists of clever and original twists on Cretan favourites and the surroundings are very attractive. This already popular eatery does get very busy, so be sure to book especially for dinner at the weekend! See more info on our restaurants page.
The Minoistas are a group of Heraklion residents who care about their city and want to do something to help it. There aims include wanting a city that is more attractive, more efficient, with better public transport, more green spaces, cycle lanes and a lot less litter. The group is open to anyone willing to join and volunteer to help. More on their website and follow their program of activities on their Facebook page.
Critical Mass Heraklion
If you want some exercise and some fun without damaging the environment, why not join one of the cycle rides of Critical Mass Heraklion? Critical Mass is a cycling event typically held on the last Friday of every month in over 300 cities around the world. The ride was originally founded in 1992 in San Francisco. It basically involves meeting at a set location and time and travelling as a group through city or town streets on bikes. Some bigger scale events as in Budapest, Hungary, have an activist group formed around it, organising the rides and communicating the desires and problems of the cyclists to the city council. Inspired by the international movement, 5 cyclists started their own ride here in Heraklion in 2008. The 5 became 50, then 500, and now there are roughly 1400 members of the group, although of course not all of them are present at any one event! Their ages range from 2 (helped out by parents!) to 72 and as there is no formalised structure, each member has an equal say in the organisation of events. There are monthly rides and weekly rides. In winter, the monthly rides take place on the last Friday of every month starting from Lion Square at 6pm; in summer, it’s every last Saturday starting at midday. The weekly rides are on Wednesdays and start from Hania Gate (Hanioporta) at 6pm.
However, that’s not the end of it. The aim of the group is to make more people aware of the benefits of a bike not only as a means of transport within the crowded streets of the town, but as a means of recreation and improving the quality of life. To that end, as part of the bicycle festivals (three to date) they organise seminars on cycle safety, hold cycle repair workshops, sell second-hand bikes and biking accessories and even organise concerts. Seminars on safe bike riding are also being held in schools, and there have been clean-ups at beaches and other parts of the town and surrounding areas as part of their environmental awareness campaign.
So how about it? All you need to do is get on your bike! For more information, visit the group’s Facebook page. And many thanks to member Stelios Papadogiannakis for the information.

© 2010-2020 NowHeraklion / Managing Editor: Clive Birch / Page updated April 2020