Panormos Village Center

The village center with its small church Ekklisia Agios Georgios is worth seeing. This is a little above the port behind the fortification wall.
Panormo is conveniently located on Crete's north coast. You can get here by car from Heraklion heading west after about 60 km or about an hour. The nearest larger town is Rethymno, about 25 km away.
The roots of this village go back to the Minoan times when Panormos was the port of the Minoan settlement Eleutherna. In the village itself there are some remains of the Venetian port fortifications (most of which have disappeared under the concrete breakwater). The remains of a basilica dedicated to St. Sophia date from the early Christian era.Until the 1930s Panormos was an important trading center, from which the entire Milopotamos district was supplied with goods. The 25 or so listed, neoclassical houses date from this period. According to the inscription above the portal, the probably oldest belonged to a Turkish trader.