Explore Chania

The Küçük Hasan Pasha Mosque, also called the Yalı or 'shore' Mosque, stands on the waterfront of Chania's old Venetian harbour. Built after the Ottoman conquest of 1645, it stopped serving as a mosque after the population exchange of 1923 and lost its minaret in 1939. Its domed hall is now used for exhibitions.

Chania Cathedral, dedicated to the Presentation of the Virgin Mary, stands on Athinagora Square in the old town. The three-aisled basilica was built between 1850 and 1860 on the site of a Venetian warehouse turned Ottoman soap factory; its three aisles give it the name Trimartyri. Inside are icons by 19th-century Cretan painters.

Firkas Fortress is the Venetian bastion at the western entrance to the old harbour of Chania, the Revellino del Porto, completed in the decades before the Ottoman conquest of 1645 with gun vaults covering the harbour mouth. The Ottomans used it as barracks, which gave it its name, and its vaults served as a prison. The Greek flag was raised here on 1 December 1913.

Chania Lighthouse stands at the end of the breakwater at the entrance to the old Venetian harbour of Chania, on Crete. The Venetians kept a light here; the present 26-metre stone tower was rebuilt on the old base in 1864 by Egyptian troops serving the Ottomans, damaged in the Second World War and restored in 2006. A walk along the breakwater leads to its foot.

The Church of St. Nicholas stands on Splantzia Square in the old town of Chania. Built around 1320 by Dominican friars as a Catholic church, it became the Hünkar Mosque after the Ottoman conquest and was consecrated as an Orthodox church in 1918. It keeps both a bell tower and a minaret about 36 metres tall.