The Historical Museum of Crete is located at Sofokli Venizelou 27 & Lisimachou Kalokairinou 7. It was founded in 1953, and is housed in a neoclassical building of exceptional architectural merit. It tells the story of seventeen centuries of local history and culture, from the early Christian centuries up to modern times. Byzantine art and culture, the periods of Venetian and Ottoman rule, the age of revolutions on the course to union with Greece, World War II, the Battle of Crete and the resistance, as well as Cretan rural folk culture are all highlighted via selected exhibits combined with a wealth of visual material and multimedia.

 The finest exhibits are two El Greco paintings, “The Baptism of Christ” (1567) and “View of Mt. Sinai and the Monastery of St. Catherine” (1570), the only works by the artist now on Crete. The Nikos Kazantzakis is in a special collection including personal effects and manuscripts by the Cretan writer.The Museum has an audio guide system, a café and a shop.