Next to the illustrious ancient cities and the grand monuments of the Middle Ages and Renaissance stands the more recent architectural heritage of eastern Crete. Austere, yet interesting, it is mainly made up of the remains of the farming and pastoral life of the last few centuries - a true architectural wealth. Edifices and pieces of work mainly made of stone: dry stone walls, cobbled roads, farmhouses, wine presses, threshing floors, watermills, windmills, cisterns, wells, spring heads, canals, ponds, stockyards, shepherds’ huts, shacks. But also small or complementary fortifications, castles, towers, walls. Many religious edifices , churches, countryside churches, monasteries, hermitages… and, of course, towns and villages.
These are all wondrous works of folk architecture, models of adjustment to the natural landscape and to the Cretan environment.
But above all, it is the village that dominates and adorns the countryside of eastern Crete. Small or larger clusters of white houses, on hill-tops or on mountain slopes, some derelict and deserted, others lively and developing.
Excellent samples of old Cretan houses, mansions or neoclassical buildings, or even small clumps of traditional architecture, can be found in all the villages or towns of eastern Crete, such as Kritsa, Pefkoi, Anatoli, Neapoli, Sitia.
