THE VILLAGE OF VENERATO
THE VILLAGE
OF VENERATO
Venetian Era
1204 AD – 1669 AD
In 1212, Venetians began to settle families from Venice on Crete.
The coexistence of two different cultures and the stimulus of the Italian Renaissance led to a flourishing of letters and the arts in Candia and Crete in general, that is today known as the Cretan Renaissance.
Today
The picturesque Venerato village, located 15 km from Heraklion, was in the 16th-century the resort of the Venetian lords.
It was so pleasant for them to stay here, that they built several mansions for the Venetian nobles.
Today, several of these residences are still surviving …
The village of Venerato has almost 1000 inhabitants, is only 15 minutes drive from the capital Heraklion (15 km), offers its visitors 2 taverns, 5 bars, 3 supermarkets, a butcher, a cheese shop, two hairdressers, a beauty center, a pharmacy, a gas station, 4 churches, 2 schools and several workshops of small artisans.
Of great importance, 1 km from Venerato is the Paliani Monastery, the oldest monastery in Crete, a female monastery dating back to the Byzantine era, a pilgrimage destination for Cretans, Greeks, and tourists.
The icon of Panagia Mirtidiotissa (the Virgin of the Myrtle) is said to have been found in the root of the great myrtle southeast of the church. It is also said that the icon is surrounded by the trunk of the myrtle and can be seen only by children.
The Venerato gorge takes place between the monastery and the village: a very small gorge, 500 meters long and of natural beauty. The sides of the gorge are narrow in some places and sometimes even the walls seem to touch, they also host small waterfalls of the Apollonas river that crosses it all year round.
An International Symposium of Sculpture is organized almost every year in the Venerato Sculpture Center, where artists from different regions of Greece and the world can create and exhibit their works of art.
Just 1/2 km from Venerato are the villages of Dafnes, Kerasia, and Avgeniki with various services available to travelers. The village of Agia Varvara, the biggest in our area, is 7 km from Venerato and has various banks, restaurants, bars and much more…
The international airport “N. Kazantzakis ”of Heraklion is 20 km from the village of Venerato and from our houses.
The soul of the village
The soul
of the village
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