Visit the graphic town Agios Nikolaos with its beautiful lake and port.
A 7-Day Exploration of Crete’s Cuisine and Culture
Duration
7 d
Availability
Up to 10 persons
Guided Tour
Up to 10 persons
Overnight Stay
Up to 10 persons
Active Months
Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct
Bio Products
Bio Products
Toilets
Toilets
Accessibility
Accessibility
Tasting
Tasting
Dining Services
Dining Services
Retail Shop
Retail Shop
Pet Friendly
Pet Friendly
Transfer Service
Transfer Service
Description
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.
Highlights
Included
Not Included
Optional Services
Once you complete your checkout with Gastronomy Tours, you can book your Car Rental or Transfer Services through our partners. Information you will find on the confirmation email.
Itinerary
- 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 – it is an easy 1.5-mile walk, so you can explore the heart of Heraklion city while learning about its unique history and culture. On this tour, you will try local “mezedes” Greek coffee with bougatsa while enjoying the city of Heraklion. The images and the flavors that take you on this journey.
Then visiting Heraklion Archaeological Museum was founded in 1908 to house the first collections of Cretan antiquities, which were rapidly enhanced. Its cultural riches cover seven millennia, from the Neolithic period (7000 BC) to Roman times (3rd cent. AD). Following the restoration work of the past few years, completed in May 2014, the exhibition is housed in 27 rooms.
The next stop to the Unique Pastry History Museum. The museum opened its doors on 1-7-2021 and currently includes 400 rare exhibits with 32 unique in the world!
We will have a short tour of the production area. You see utensils, materials, and machines that our chefs need! We learn the production, conditions, and specifications and talk about the daily life of the confectioner-baker profession! We enter the specially designed space where the seminar will take place: on the subject of chocolate and its history! We show how we process it. We make chocolate eggs or filled chocolates! We learn to make our cornet out of paper! You write your name in “cornet” and make drawings on paper!
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 learn the secrets of cheese-making. Enjoy a cheese tasting with famous Cretan cheeses and savor the freshly-made cheese with homemade meze and raki.
After cheese making, you have a hands-on cooking experience. You have the opportunity, and with the guidance of a chef, to learn to make authentic Cretan plates using a wide range of fresh, organic ingredients from our garden. After the cooking class, you will sit down and enjoy the meal you’ve learned to cook, accompanied by local wine.
Different from all other towns in Crete, Agios Nikolaos.
The town’s graphic has a beautiful Lake and port. The lake (“Voulismeni”) is a folklore-inspiringly deep body of water connected to the sea by a narrow inlet.
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
The route: of authentic Crete: We stroll around the city, and let’s taste together the products of the Cretan Diet. We shall touch and smell the herbs and spices of Cretan soil. On our way, we will visit a traditional place in the heart of the old town of Rethymno, where tasting traditional products such as local cheese, honey of thyme, local wine, Cretan olives, and the famous Cretan traditional drink raki, and many other products. During the tour of the city, you will discover historical monuments. You see the Venetian architecture of another era.
The Olive Oil Tour: The quality of Cretan olive oil is known all over the world. At the olive mill, you have the opportunity to taste three different olive mills. You see how olive oil produced in the old days with manual tools and with the help of animals.
Honey -Tasting & Tour: Taking part in the tour Is an unprecedented experience for the history and production of Honey in Crete. The bees, these unpredictable alchemists, fly from flower to flower, finding hidden gems, the juices of fruit, and the nectar of each land.
Pottery workshop: Margarites village is famous for its ceramic tradition. In our workshop, we receive visitors from all over the world to get to know Cretan Ceramic Art to see how we make the pots on the wheel, how we decorate them, and how they are baked in the oven to reach their final form.
Meals included: Breakfast – Food Tour
Overnight: Heraklion
- Day 5
Heraklion Knossos Palace – Cooking Class with Wine Experience – Wine and Olive Oil Tasting
Today you will visit the Palace of Knossos, built 3500 years ago! The Palace of Knossos is one monument you must see in Crete.
Discover and explore the History and Culture behind the Cretan diet with the company of our two executive hosts. Our chef will demonstrate and direct you to making four different Cretan dishes, and our certified sommelier will share with you our knowledge regarding winemaking on Crete. This experience will offer you expertise in making Authentic Cretan Dakos, Handmade Cretan Pasta or Handmade Cretan Pies, a homemade recipe from scratch, and a traditional dessert. At the end of your experience, you will enjoy the recipes you made with wines of our Estate which will pair harmoniously. You have a Cooking Class of four different dishes, lunch followed by food and wine pairing with a selection of four wines.
The Domaine Paterianakis is located in Melesses, in the Peza wine region, right in the center of Crete. The third generation of the Paterianakis family, Emmanuela and Niki, continues the wine tradition of organic farming, creating authentic Cretan wines with strong personalities. Winery, located within vineyards, is a pioneer facility built so that winemaking that done naturally, exploited by gravity. Guided wine tasting has five different select domaine wines. Taste our tsikoudia from a local grape. Tasting a virgin olive oil and accompanying tasting with a platter of selected Cretan cheeses, deli meat, and handmade marmalade.
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.
Today you will have the opportunity to walk and explore on your own in Heraklion! The city of Heraklion is the commercial center of Heraklion. You can find a variety of variations for your shopping and see its beautiful corners and monuments. In the afternoon, you have 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.
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