Explore Rethymno

The Neradje Mosque in Rethymno's old town began as the Augustinian church of Santa Maria and became a mosque in 1657, after the Ottoman conquest. Three domes replaced the Venetian roof, and the minaret with two balconies, added in 1890, is the tallest in the town. Since the 1920s it has housed the town's music conservatory; visitors see it from outside.

The Archaeological Museum of Rethymno occupies the church of St Francis, a 16th-century Venetian Franciscan church in the old town. Its displays present finds from sites around Rethymno, among them Neolithic pottery from the Gerani cave and painted Late Minoan clay coffins (larnakes) from the cemetery at Armenoi.

The Rimondi Fountain is a Venetian public fountain in Rethymno's old town, built in 1629 and named after the city's rector Alvise Rimondi, whose family arms it bears. Four Corinthian columns frame three lion heads that still spout water, beneath the Latin inscription LIBERALITATIS FONTES. Only fragments survive of the dome that once covered it.

The Fortezza is the Venetian citadel of Rethymno, built from 1573 to 1580 on the Paleokastro hill, the site of the ancient acropolis, to designs by Sforza Pallavicini. The Ottomans took it in 1646. Inside the bastioned walls stand the domed Sultan Ibrahim Mosque, the small church of St Catherine and the remains of storerooms and officials' houses.