About Manolis Fragkiadakis
I am a licensed Cretan guide. I live in Rethymno old town and I have been walking visitors up to the Fortezza since 2009. This site exists because the fortress is a cheap walk-in and the guided tours are not, and almost nobody tells you plainly which of the two you actually need.
Who I am
My name is Manolis Fragkiadakis. I grew up three streets below the Guora Gate, which means I walked through a Venetian city wall on the way to school without noticing it for about eleven years. I hold a Greek guiding licence and I work in Rethymno and the surrounding part of the island. Most weeks in season I am somewhere on Paleokastro hill explaining why a fortress with 1,307 metres of wall was built above a town this size.
Why this site exists
Adult admission to the Fortezza is about €5, paid at the gate, and there is no way to book it online. Guided tours of Rethymno run between €40 and €65. Those two facts sit next to each other on every page here, because the honest answer for a lot of people is that the ticket and a pair of closed shoes are enough. Whether the Fortezza is worth it and what the gate charges both start from that.
The other half of the job is saying what a guide adds when one is worth paying for: the siege of 1646, the reason the big domed building was a cathedral before it was a mosque, and the layers of Venetian and Ottoman work you can see on one doorway. That is on the complete guide.
How I review the tours
I read the operator listings and the traveller reviews, and I write up what each tour actually gives you access to. I say when a sample is too small to mean anything, and I say when a 4.4-rated coach day is good value and still not a Fortezza tour. Nobody pays me to be nice about their tour, and I do not name the operating companies. All of it is on the reviews page.
What I am not
I am not the Fortezza, the Municipality of Rethymno or the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports, who manage the site. I do not sell the gate ticket and I cannot get you past the queue at the gate. Opening hours move season to season and I am not the ticket office, so check the hours page and then check the board when you arrive.
How the site is paid for
When you book a tour through a link here, GetYourGuide pays me a small commission and you pay the same price you would pay them directly. That is the whole business model, and it is set out on the affiliate disclosure page. If something on this site is wrong, tell me: contact.