I only discovered Chania market late on the Friday afternoon of my last day in Crete. It’s housed inside a large cruciform purpose-built building with an elaborately-beamed high roof. The Agora (market in Greek), as it’s known, was built between 1911 and 1913 and modelled on the market in Marseille. It was opened as part of the celebrations of the unification of Crete to Greece.
To enter involves climbing wide steps and passing through a temple-like facade. There are other entrances at the back and on each side. Inside are 70+ shops and little cafes selling great slabs of cheese, big bunches of mountain tea, multi-coloured olives, abundant meat and fish varieties, jars and jars of honey, dried fruits, yoghurt, coffee, olive oil, raki, vegetables, snails …
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| So many olives |
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| Cretan cheese and honey |
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| Mountain tea |
As well as all the food, the Chania market also sells Cretan knives, tourist t-shirts, locally made soaps, leather bags, postcards and scarves. There was even a cat on a shelf, but I don’t that was for sale.
It was a shame I’d only discovered so late into my trip as I would have liked to spend more time browsing and to have tried out the food and coffee in the cafes.
The Agora is open Mon to Sat 8am until 1.30 or 2pm. It’s also open on Tue, Thur and Fri evenings from 5pm to 8pm, though we were there before 5pm and everything seemed to be open.
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