CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Irákleion it runs 437 km to Irákleion; allow about 7 h 21 of riding. It goes by way of Minoan Palatial Centres, Zominthos, Malia and Phaistos. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Heraklion is the big, busy, slightly untidy capital of Crete, and it has never tried to be pretty. The old Venetian harbour still holds a fortress, the Koules, whose sea walls were built to keep out the Ottomans, and the long ramparts of the town, with their bastions, enclose a centre of narrow streets and small squares. On one of those bastions lies the grave of Nikos Kazantzakis, the author of Zorba the Greek, with a plain wooden cross and an epitaph that says he hoped for nothing, feared nothing, and was free.
Read the complete Heraklion write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Heraklion is where the day begins. Next is Minoan Palatial Centres.
High on the northern flank of Psiloritis, the mountain the ancients called Ida, the road from Anogeia climbs onto a stony plateau, and at around 1,200 metres you come upon a Minoan building standing alone among the scrub and grazing goats. This is Zominthos, a large Bronze Age complex that excavations have shown to be more than a mountain shelter: it had dozens of rooms, workshops and storage spaces, and it sat on the ancient route toward the sacred Idaean Cave, where myth says Zeus was raised. In 2025 it was included with Knossos, Phaistos, Malia and others among the Minoan Palatial Centres listed by UNESCO, which gives you an idea of its importance.
Read the complete Minoan Palatial Centres write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Minoan Palatial Centres comes up about 41 km into the recorded legs. Next is Zominthos.
Zominthos is a mountain meadow on the north-eastern shoulder of Mount Psiloritis, or Ida, the highest peak in Crete at 2,456 metres, and at about twelve hundred metres altitude it is cool, green and silent even in August. It was the site of a Minoan settlement, a large two-storey building of the middle Bronze Age, excavated from 1982 by the archaeologist Yiannis Sakellarakis, and the stone walls and rooms still stand among the grass. It was probably a way station on the path to the sacred Idaean Cave, where legend says the infant Zeus was hidden from his father Kronos and raised by nymphs and goats. A pilgrim route ran through here for thousands of years.
Read the complete Zominthos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 42 km into the recorded legs you reach Zominthos. Next is Malia.
Mália is two things in Crete at once: a beach resort known for loud nights, and the site of a Minoan palace that is nearly four thousand years old. The first palace was built around 1900 BC, destroyed by an earthquake or invaders, rebuilt about 1650 BC and then destroyed again around 1450 BC, the same wave of disasters that ended Minoan power across the island. It was excavated by French archaeologists from the 1920s, after a local scholar, Joseph Hatzidakis, had begun work in 1915. It is the third in size of Crete's great palaces, after Knossos and Phaistos.
Read the complete Malia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Malia, about halfway. Next is Phaistos.
The Messara is Crete's largest plain, a broad, fertile trough between the Psiloritis range to the north and the low Asterousia hills to the south, and at its western end a long ridge rises above the valley of the Geropotamos river. On that ridge stood Phaistos, one of the great palaces of the Minoan civilisation, the culture that flourished in Crete in the second millennium BC. The first palace was built around 1900 BC and destroyed by an earthquake, and the second, rebuilt on top, was a larger and more graceful construction, with a broad staircase to the west court, storerooms, royal apartments and a central courtyard. The view alone makes the climb worth it, with Mount Ida snowy in spring on one side and the blue haze of the Libyan Sea on the other.
Read the complete Phaistos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Phaistos sits at 198 km, about halfway. Next is back through Malia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Malia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Malia comes up about 311 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Zominthos.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Zominthos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 390 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Zominthos. Next is back through Minoan Palatial Centres.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Minoan Palatial Centres write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Minoan Palatial Centres, late in the day. Next is Heraklion.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Heraklion write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 437 km.
Heraklion → Minoan Palatial Centres is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Zominthos → Malia is 86 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Mália → Phaistos is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Phaistos → back through Malia is 92 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Malia → back through Zominthos is 79 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Minoan Palatial Centres → Heraklion is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.