7-Day Culinary & Cultural Exploration of Crete
- Seven-Day Cretan Culinary Journey: Spend seven days exploring Crete’s exceptional food culture — cooking classes, olive oil tastings, winery visits, market tours, and producer encounters from Heraklion to Chania
- Cultural & Archaeological Integration: Experience Knossos, Phaistos, Akrotiri, and other extraordinary Cretan archaeological sites within the context of the food culture they helped create
- Complete Cretan Culinary Experience: Taste the full breadth of Cretan cuisine across seven days — the wines of Peza and Archanes, the olive oils of Messinia, and the extraordinary traditional dishes of every Cretan region
Day 1 — Heraklion-Arrival-Welcome Dinner
Arrival at Heraklion airport. Check in to your room. Relax and explore your surroundings before dinner.
Meals included: Dinner
Overnight Heraklion
Day 2 — Heraklion – Archeological Museum – City/Food Tour & Pastry Lesson- Visit Pastry History Museum
Enjoy a food and cultural walking tour suitable for all ages – an easy 1.5-mile walk through the heart of Heraklion, learning about its unique history and culture while trying local mezedes and Greek coffee with bougatsa.
Then visit Heraklion Archaeological Museum, founded in 1908 to house the first collections of Cretan antiquities. Its cultural riches cover seven millennia, from the Neolithic period (7000 BC) to Roman times (3rd cent. AD), exhibited across 27 rooms.
The next stop is the Unique Pastry History Museum, which opened on 1-7-2021 and includes 400 rare exhibits with 32 unique in the world. Tour the production area, see utensils and machines, learn the confectioner-baker profession, and take a hands-on chocolate-making class — making chocolate eggs or filled chocolates and decorating with a paper cornet.
Meals included: Breakfast – Food Tour
Overnight: Heraklion
Day 3 — Agios Nikolaos – Cheese Making – Cooking Class
Experience hands-on cheese-making in Crete with our local shepherd. You’ll milk and feed the goats, help make two types of cheese, and enjoy a cheese tasting with famous Cretan cheeses and homemade meze and raki.
After cheese making, a hands-on cooking class with a chef guides you through authentic Cretan plates using fresh, organic ingredients from the garden, followed by a meal with local wine. Agios Nikolaos charms with its beautiful Lake Voulismeni and port.
Meals included: Breakfast – Lunch with wine
Overnight Heraklion
Day 4 — Food & Walking Tour of the Old Town of Rethymno-Pottery Workshop –Olive Oil and Honey
Stroll through the old town of Rethymno tasting products of the Cretan Diet — local cheese, thyme honey, local wine, Cretan olives, and raki — while discovering historical monuments and Venetian architecture.
The Olive Oil Tour offers an olive oil tasting at a local mill, where you see how olive oil was produced in the old days with manual tools. The Honey Tasting & Tour brings you inside Crete’s honey production heritage. The Pottery Workshop in Margarites village, famous for its ceramic tradition, lets you see how pots are made on the wheel and decorated.
Meals included: Breakfast – Food Tour
Overnight: Heraklion
Day 5 — Heraklion Knossos Palace – Cooking Class with Wine Experience – Wine and Olive Oil Tasting
Visit the Palace of Knossos, built 3500 years ago — one monument you must see in Crete.
Then join a cooking class at Domaine Paterianakis in Melesses, in the Peza wine region, guided by an executive chef and certified sommelier. Make four dishes: Authentic Cretan Dakos, Handmade Cretan Pasta or Pies, and a traditional dessert — then enjoy them with four estate wines.
The guided winery tour at Domaine Paterianakis includes five select wines, tsikoudia tasting, and an olive oil tasting accompanied by a platter of Cretan cheeses, deli meat, and handmade marmalade. Emmanuela and Niki Paterianakis continue the family’s third-generation tradition of organic farming.
Meals included: Breakfast and lunch with wine.
Overnight: Heraklion
Day 6 — Heraklion- Free Day and Farewell Dinner
Heraklion is the largest city of Crete and one of Greece’s major urban centers. Spend the day walking and exploring independently — shopping, monuments, and beautiful corners — before a farewell dinner.
Meals included: Breakfast – Dinner with wine.
Overnight: Heraklion
Day 7 — Heraklion – Departure
Breakfast
Transportation to the airport for the flight back home.
