Kalokairinou Avenue in Heraklion

Kalokairinou Avenue, the “Platia Strata” of Heraklion

Continuing our walk around Heraklion, we will leave Saint Catherine Square and cross the paved backstreets to Kalokairinou Avenue to return to the Meidani.

Kalokairinou Avenue is named after the Kalokairinou family, which has offered Heraklion much. Let us not forget that it was Minos Kalokairinos who carried out the first excavations at Knossos, long before Evans.

Kalokairinou Avenue is one of the main shopping streets of the city, with many modern shops. The people of Heraklion often refer to it as Platia Strata (“Broad Street”), as did the Venetians (Strada Larga). If Kalokairinou Avenue does not seem all that wide to you, don’t forget that this is one of the oldest streets in Heraklion, which has become narrower over the centuries, no longer justifying its traditional name.

At the start of Kalokairinou Avenue, on your left hand as you walk towards the Lions, on the site of today’s Hatziioannou store, once stood the Orthodox cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, a church of the Venetian period. Few traces of it remain today.

Continuing along Kalokairinou Avenue, you come to the Meidani (the central crossroads in Heraklion), with 25th of August Street running down to the harbour on your left.