Heraklion to Rethymno: Driving, the Airport Arrival and the Old Town at the End

You step out of the arrivals hall at Heraklion Airport with a Cretan coastline waiting and a hotel in Rethymno on the booking confirmation. The question comes up at the curb, between the luggage and the first look at the island: how do you get from the largest city on Crete to the town of Venetian lanes and minarets on the same northern shore? The answer starts with the road along the north coast and with what you carry in your wallet if you drive yourself.

How do you get from Heraklion to Rethymno?

You go from one town to the other along the northern coast of Crete, with Heraklion at your starting point and Rethymno as the next large town toward Chania. Rethymno is the third largest city on the northern coast and sits between Chania and Heraklion, so the two places belong to the same strip of island and the same sea.

Heraklion is built on the north coast of Crete, overlooking the sea, and it is the largest city on the island. Most travelers begin in one of two spots: the city itself or the airport, which lies 3.1 miles east of the center, in the area of Alikarnassos. The airport is the second busiest in Greece after Athens and runs around the clock on a single main runway, so an arrival can happen at any hour, including late at night.

Starting from Heraklion Airport

The airport sits on the eastern side of the city, in Alikarnassos, which means you begin your trip at the edge of town and not in its old streets. Because the airport works twenty-four hours a day, a late flight does not leave you facing a closed building. You collect your bags, and from there you choose how to continue to Rethymno.

Many travelers use that first stretch to settle into the island’s pace. A coffee in the arrivals area, a look at the map, a first sip of cold water: the trip west begins from this spot, with the sea on one side of the road and the hills of Crete on the other.

Starting from the center of Heraklion

If you have spent a night or two in Heraklion, you leave from a city that is busy with its own interests. The Minoan palace of Knossos lies just a few kilometres from the center, which makes it an easy name to add to your Heraklion days before moving on. Heraklion has a working-port energy, with a modern grid of streets and a harbor that faces the water.

Rethymno feels different when you arrive. The scale drops, the lanes narrow, and the old town (palia poli) was almost entirely built by the Republic of Venice. You swap the largest city on Crete for a place where you are most likely to travel on foot.

Which options are there?

Driving yourself is the option that carries a clear rule: U.S. visitors driving in Greece must carry a valid U.S. driver’s license, and insurance companies may require an international driver’s permit.

Driving yourself between the two towns

A car lets you treat the north coast as a string of places and not a single destination. You set your own order, and the road that links Heraklion with Rethymno and then Chania follows the shoreline that all three towns share. On a drive like this, the stops you make say as much about the trip as the arrival does.

The paperwork comes before the keys. Carry your valid U.S. license and the IDP together. The U.S. Embassy in Greece does not issue IDPs, so travelers get theirs in the United States from the American Automobile Association (AAA) or the American Automobile Touring Alliance (AATA). That step happens at home, well before the flight.

Other ways to make the trip

Beyond driving, travelers often look at public and shared transport on Crete. What matters for the shape of the trip is that both towns stand on the same northern coast, with Rethymno between Heraklion and Chania.

That geography helps when you plan a wider loop. You can think of Heraklion, Rethymno and Chania as three beads on one string, and you can decide how many of them your days on Crete can hold.

What should you know before you travel from Heraklion to Rethymno?

Know what waits at the other end: Rethymno has one of the best-preserved medieval old towns in Greece, and it is worth arriving with an appetite for wandering. The municipal unit counted 38,759 people in the 2021 census, which gives it the feel of a real town where locals live and work and not only a place for visitors.

The old town and the Fortezza

The palia poli is built around Venetian fortifications, Orthodox and Catholic churches, minarets and old hammams (Ottoman bathhouses). Layers of rule are visible in a single street: a Venetian doorway, a mosque tower now standing among café tables, a bathhouse dome. You read the town’s story by walking through it.

Above the harbor stands the Fortezza, a Venetian-era citadel and one of the best-preserved castles in Crete. Its walls give the town its profile from the water and from the beach. Visiting is a matter of walking its grounds and looking back over the roofs of the old quarter.

The beach and the table

Next to the old town runs a vast beach full of hotels, restaurants and cafés. It gives Rethymno a seaside side that sits right beside the history, so a day can hold a stroll through Venetian lanes and then a long lunch with the sea in view.

Cretan food suits that kind of day. Think of dakos (barley rusk topped with tomato and soft cheese), graviera cheese, snails with rosemary, bougatsa for breakfast, and a small glass of raki poured at the end of the meal. Tavernas in the old lanes and along the waterfront serve versions of all these, and ordering a few plates to share is the natural way to eat.

Adding Knossos before you leave Heraklion

If you begin in Heraklion, the Minoan palace of Knossos is just a few kilometres from the center. The Minoan palace of Knossos lies just a few kilometres from the center of Heraklion, an easy addition before you leave for Rethymno.

The contrast is part of the pleasure of this stretch of Crete. In a short span you pass from a palace of the ancient Minoans to a harbor city and then to a Venetian town with Ottoman touches, each one visible in stone.

Good to know before you go

Greece uses the euro, and the northern coast of Crete is a place where a card and a little cash for small purchases sit comfortably together in a wallet. If you plan to drive, keep your U.S. license and your international driver’s permit in the same place so both come out together. Rethymno’s old lanes are best met on foot, with a day left open for wandering, a coffee on a Venetian square and a last look at the sea from the Fortezza.