Agios Nikolaos from Heraklion: Getting There, Your Options Compared and What to See on Arrival

Leaving Heraklion means leaving the city of the Palace of Knossos and the island’s big airport behind and heading toward Mirabello Bay. The town at the end is built around a small lagoon, Lake Voulismeni, ringed with cafés and fishing boats. For anyone based in the capital of Crete, Agios Nikolaos is the next stop eastward.

How do you get to Agios Nikolaos from Heraklion?

You go east across Crete, by land, because both towns sit on the same island and Agios Nikolaos lies east of Heraklion on Mirabello Bay. No sea crossing separates them, so the question is how you move overland once you are in the capital, whether you land at its airport or step off a ship at its port.

Heraklion is the largest city and capital of the island, with Crete’s main international airport and a cruise and ferry port. That makes it the usual place where a trip to the island begins, and it is why this journey starts there. Agios Nikolaos, for its part, is a town with a lively atmosphere all year round, so you arrive in a place that is awake whatever the month.

What decides the way you travel is mostly where you sleep and what you want to see along the route. Crete is a long island, roughly 160 miles from end to end and about 37 miles across, so moving from one town to another is a real part of the trip, not an afterthought. If your plan includes Knossos on the edge of Heraklion before you head east, or Spinalonga after you arrive, the order of those stops matters more than the vehicle you pick.

Spinalonga Island can be reached from Agios Nikolaos, Elounda and Plaka, which makes the town a convenient base for it. Think of the journey from Heraklion as the first leg of a loop that includes the lagoon, the small town beaches and that island.

Ways to get to Agios Nikolaos from Heraklion

Starting at Heraklion airport

Heraklion has the island’s main international airport, so most visitors who fly to Crete land here before going anywhere else. From the airport you are already on the island, and Agios Nikolaos is simply the next place along Crete’s eastern side. There is no flight to take for this leg.

Travelers who arrive by air and head straight on tend to land with luggage and a long day behind them, so it helps to plan the first night in Agios Nikolaos as a slow one. The lagoon, with its small park, its trail and its cafés, is a place to sit down once you arrive.

Starting at Heraklion port

Heraklion also has a cruise and ferry port, and this is where sea travelers reach Crete. Two Greek shipping names belong to this world. ANEK Lines was founded by residents of Crete as a community company and is one of the largest passenger shipping companies in Greece. Blue Star Ferries links the Greek mainland with the Aegean Islands and serves more than 20 destinations.

These companies are how many travelers get to Heraklion. From the quay, the trip to Agios Nikolaos continues on land across the island, since the town sits on Mirabello Bay in eastern Crete.

Overland across eastern Crete

The journey itself runs eastward from the capital toward Mirabello Bay. Along the way the island changes character: Crete lies between the Sea of Crete and the Libyan Sea, and the eastern part leads to towns such as Agios Nikolaos, Ierapetra to the south and Sitia further east.

Agios Nikolaos is north of Ierapetra and west of Sitia, so it works as a hinge for exploring the east. If you plan to see more of the island after the town, that position is the reason to settle there for a few nights rather than treat it as a stop on a straight line.

Options compared

What separates these choices is the way you reach Heraklion, since the town of Agios Nikolaos lies the same way whichever door you come through. Think about whether Knossos belongs to the first day, because the palace sits outside Heraklion and is one of the two sites people single out on Crete, together with Spinalonga.

If your days in Heraklion are few, the archaeological museum there is the island’s most famous, and it pairs naturally with the palace. Agios Nikolaos has its own archaeological museum too, so you can treat the two as bookends of the same story, one in the capital and one on the bay.

Making a day of it

The best use of the journey is to combine the capital’s heritage with the lagoon town at the end. In Heraklion, the Minoan Palace of Knossos is the big archaeological site, and the museum in the city is the most famous of Crete’s well-respected archaeological museums. Seeing either before you head east gives the rest of the island some context.

On arrival, start with Lake Voulismeni, the landmark around which the town was built. It was connected to the sea when a narrow canal was opened in 1870, and today it holds a small park with a trail, traditional fishing boats, ducks, pigeons, an amphitheatre and many cafés. A walk around it is a gentle way to find your bearings.

From there, the town offers small beaches, the tiny island of Agioi Pantes, the archaeological museum and the local flora exhibition called Iris, along with numerous fairs. The town even sits partly on the ruins of the ancient city of Lato pros Kamara, so the ground under the cafés has a long past.

If you have extra days, Spinalonga Island is reached from Agios Nikolaos, Elounda or Plaka, and it is the second of the two sites named as must-sees on Crete. Bring what you would for a day around water and old stone: sun protection, comfortable shoes and a swimsuit for the town beaches.

Good to know before you go

Agios Nikolaos keeps a lively atmosphere through the year, so the town is not tied to a single season. Heraklion and Agios Nikolaos are both on Crete, the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest in the Mediterranean, with a population of about 650,000. Plan the trip as a move between two towns on one large island, and you will arrive with the right sense of scale.