Chania is the 2nd largest city of Crete and to me, and thanks to its lovely old Venetian port and quaint ancient alley ways in the old town, it is far more aesthetic and charming than either the largest city, Heraklion, or the 3rd largest, Rethymnos.

It not only has its own airport but also has the advantage of relative proximity to Crete’s gorges – Samaria Gorge and Agia Irini Gorge, as well as Crete’s most famous beaches such as Balos Beach and Elafonísi Beach – although coming from Australia’s bountiful amazing beaches, they don’t really impress me much considering how much effort one has to make to get to Balos beach – but still if one is enjoying the lovely Mediterranean summer then they are a welcome relief.

If you want pics of these beaches, just search online and you will find millions I am sure.

But for now, here are some of what I found to be charming in Chania in addition to the lovely friendly Cretan people and their many seaside restaurants.

I used the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II with the holy trinity of zooms – Olympus 7-14mm f/2.8, Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 and the Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 and I used nearly every focal length this range afforded me and some were shot using hand held HDR bracketing.

At no stage in the whole of my trip to Greece did I reach into my bag for my wide aperture shallow depth of field lenses – this is why heavy, big, expensive full frame cameras are needed for travel – you rarely need to shoot shallow DOF because you want to capture the scene and the context – most of my imagery was shot at f/5.6 which, in full frame DOF terms is f/11 – so why carry a big full frame f/1.4 prime or even f/2.8 zoom lens around and risk it getting stolen or damaged, or breaking your back?

The old Venetian port and the lighthouse and fort:

Hand held 3 bracketed manual HDR:

The port restaurants and hotels – most of which close at the end of tourist season in the 1st week of November, these were taken just after sunrise before the crowds arrived and before they closed for winter:

The quaint, colorful houses and shops in the old town:

Hand held 3 bracketed manual HDR:

And to finish this post, a long night exposure of the port:

Chania was certainly one of my favorite places in Greece, but I could imagine it could get quite busy and hot during the summer tourist season – for me – the end of the season suited me just fine as I sat back enjoying some local seafood and local wines in the gentle evening breezes!

Although it took a bit of getting use to the local tradition of being plied with free desserts (when you have already over ordered and not quite feeling ready for desserts) and their local jet fuel – raki to scull at the end of the meal – although some restaurants had better versions, and one restaurant even offered the local mastika liqueur which was quite nice – this is flavoured by gum from the mastic tree which is native to the Mediterranean region and which is also used to make chewing gum.