Knossos Palace tickets give you entry to the Minoan palace near Heraklion on Crete. This page covers the ticket types, the sights, the road, the hours and the rules. The homepage lists more Greece Tours like this one.
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What do Knossos Palace tickets cover?
Knossos Palace tickets cover entry to the Palace of Knossos archaeological site. Add-ons are an audio tour on your phone, entry to the Heraklion Archaeological Museum, or a guided tour. Plain entry tickets leave out transport and a live guide.
The simplest of the Knossos Palace tickets is the entry e-ticket. It covers entry to the archaeological site and arrives by email. You show it on your phone at the entrance, where it is validated. A printed copy works too. Keep a valid photo ID handy at the entrance.
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Knossos Palace tickets with an audio tour add a self-guided app for Android and iOS phones. The app runs on your own phone, so you need your own headphones. A live guide does not come with it. Because the tour is self-guided, you walk at your own speed. One version offers narration in English, French and German.
Download the audio tour before you arrive. Its content works offline, covering text, narration and maps, and the site has no wifi or 4G. Do the download on wifi before the visit. The combined palace and museum audio tour needs at least 350 MB of free storage. On that version, the app does not run on Windows phones.
Knossos Palace tickets also come bundled with the Heraklion Archaeological Museum. One bundle includes entry to both places and an audio tour for each. The museum entry is booked five hours after the Knossos start time. That bundle cannot be cancelled or rescheduled. Its audio tour is available in English and German.
Date rules depend on the product. One timed e-ticket admits you in your chosen slot, or 15 minutes before or after it. On that ticket, the travel date and the time slot cannot be changed for any reason. On the museum bundle, you arrive 10 to 15 minutes early. Read the rules on your own ticket before you pay.
Skip-the-line Knossos Palace tickets save you the wait at the ticket office. An e-ticket bought ahead means you do not join that queue. You go straight to the entrance with the ticket on your phone. A security check and the ticket validation both happen at the entrance. The skip-the-line wording refers to the ticket office line.
The ticket booth on site is the other route. Visitors with free admission collect their tickets there and show their ID or a disability certificate. They wait in line, and the booth does not promise a ticket for a chosen time slot. Knossos Palace tickets bought online avoid that wait. Free admission tickets carry no skip-the-line benefit.
Entry also comes inside a tour. One small-group guided tour lasts 90 minutes and includes entry to the palace. A hop-on hop-off bus pass valid for 48 hours includes admission to the palace as well. Admission to other attractions is not included on that pass. The tour options differ, so read what your chosen option includes.
Check the exclusions before you pay. Entry e-tickets leave out hotel pick-up, drop-off and transport. A plain entry ticket does not include a live guide or a guided tour. Food and drinks are not covered on the audio tour tickets. An audio tour does not supply the phone or headphones. For a person to lead you, pick a tour option.
What can you see in the palace with Knossos Palace tickets?
Knossos Palace tickets get you into a Minoan palace built around nineteen hundred BC. Inside you see the Central Court, the Throne Room and the North Entrance with its bull fresco. The storerooms with large jars and the east wing halls are on site too.
Knossos Palace tickets lead to Minoan civilisation’s largest centre. That civilisation was a Bronze Age culture centred on Crete. Builders raised the first palace around nineteen hundred BC on a hill that people had already occupied. An earthquake or a series of seismic events probably destroyed it around seventeen hundred BC.
Arthur Evans dubbed the civilisation once living in this palace the Minoan civilisation. The modern term comes from King Minos, a figure of Greek myth. Minoan art included decorated pottery, seals, figurines and colourful frescoes. The Minoans wrote in two scripts, Cretan hieroglyphs and Linear A.
Your Knossos Palace tickets open a palace built around a large rectangular Central Court, as in other Minoan palaces. The West Court formed a major approach to the building and probably had ceremonial functions. The south and north entrances connected the palace to processional routes and to the surrounding town.
Inside the Throne Room, a gypsum seat stands against the wall. The room also has benches, a lustral basin and painted griffins. Evans gave the room its name because of the small seat. Its exact purpose is difficult to determine.
The Grand Staircase stands about midway along the east side of the Central Court. The great staircase and the upper floor it leads to are largely Evans’s creations. The east wing contained elaborate rooms built into the slope of the hill. They include the Hall of the Double Axes and the Queen’s Hall.
Knossos Palace tickets also take you to the North Entrance. People are believed to have come this way from the north and the port of Knossos. A steeply inclined, paved passage leads to the Central Court between two raised colonnades called bastions. The passage ends in a large hall with ten square pillars and two columns.
Evans reconstructed the West Bastion and placed a copy of a restored relief bull fresco there. He believed the original showed the capture of a wild bull in an olive grove. Another reading of the fragments sees a hunting scene. Bull-leaping also appears in Minoan painting and sculpture.
Evans began large-scale excavations at Knossos in nineteen hundred and called the building the Palace of Minos. His extensive reconstructions used reinforced concrete, colour and architectural interpretation. The tapering red columns are his work, and none of them is ancient. The original columns were wood.
The palace contained extensive storerooms, called magazines, especially in the west wing. Knossos Palace tickets show you these long rooms. They held large ceramic jars, known as pithoi, for oil, grain, wine and other goods. The Magazine of the Medallion Pithoi, in the east wing, held large jars used to store olive oil.
In Greek myth, Daedalus built the Labyrinth for King Minos at Knossos to hold the Minotaur, and Theseus killed it. Knossos Palace tickets lead to the palace whose complex plan later Greek tradition remembered as the Labyrinth. The Hall of the Double Axes is named for axe symbols, called labrys, carved in a light well.
How do you get to Knossos from Heraklion with Knossos Palace tickets?
Knossos lies 5 km south of Heraklion. Knossos Palace tickets are used at a gate close to the city. Line 2 city buses stop at the site, and a drive takes 10 to 25 minutes depending on traffic.
Knossos sits on the southern edge of Heraklion, 5 km south of the city centre. The city council’s own website gives the same 5 km figure. Anyone planning a day around Knossos Palace tickets can measure the trip from that centre. Heraklion airport lies about 5 km east of the same centre.
City bus Line 2 goes to Knossos, and the ride from central Heraklion takes about 20 minutes. Line 1 goes to the airport. The main bus stops in Heraklion post routes and schedules, and show the next bus on screens. Small stops can have none of these. Read the sign before you set out with Knossos Palace tickets.
Line 2 ends at Knossos, and the stop sits just outside the gates of the site. Ticket machines stand near the main stops, and kiosks sell tickets too, so buy your fare before boarding. At a stop, raise your arm to signal the driver.
Taxi ranks stand in all the main locations of Heraklion, downtown and at the airport and ferry port. Heraklion taxis are silver, and at the airport they wait to the left as you leave the arrivals building. A taxi is the convenient choice when you are short on time and hold Knossos Palace tickets.
Drivers find a parking area just outside the main entrance of the palace, and it takes all types of vehicles. Traffic in Heraklion is bad and parking in the city is worse. Spaces at the site can fill quickly in peak summer.
Coach tours reach Knossos from the west of Crete. One 12-hour day tour collects guests from hotels in Chania or Rethymno in an air-conditioned coach. Its pickups run from 6:40 am to 7:50 am. The coach does the driving, so that day needs no hire car.
East of Heraklion, one guided tour has pickups in Agios Nikolaos, Malia, Stalida, Hersonissos, Elounda and Gouves. It also picks up in Heraklion itself. That tour sets aside 2 hours at the palace. A 48-hour hop-on hop-off ticket in Heraklion covers two bus routes, and Knossos Palace is a stop on both.
The majority of sections connect back to the Central Court, a handy reference point for finding your way. Have your Knossos Palace tickets ready before you reach the entrance, in digital or printed form.
Visitors with limited mobility can use a route from the entrance of the palace up to the Central Court. Paved walkways and non-slip wooden ramps have been added to the site. Stone paths, steps and uneven surfaces remain, so access is partial. Holders of Knossos Palace tickets with limited mobility can plan for the Central Court.
When do Knossos Palace tickets work and which rules apply?
The site opens at 8 am in summer and closes at 8 pm. With Knossos Palace tickets, entry ends a little before closing. By late October closing falls to 6 pm, and winter closing is 5 pm or 5:30 pm.
From 1 April to 31 August the site is open from 8 am to 8 pm. This is the longest opening day of the year. Entry stops a little before closing time, so arrive well before 8 pm. Check these hours first, then pick your Knossos Palace tickets.
Autumn hours shrink in steps. In the second half of September the site closes at 7 pm. In the second half of October it closes at 6 pm. Winter begins on 1 November and ends on 31 March. The gates open by 8:30 am, and the site closes at 5 pm or 5:30 pm.
These six days close the site: 1 January, 25 March, Labour Day, Easter Sunday, 25 December and 26 December. Other holidays can bring a closure or a shorter day. These include 15 August, 28 October and the two days before Easter Sunday. Pick another date for Knossos Palace tickets if your trip lands on a closed day.
Go early or late to meet fewer people and less heat. Early morning and late afternoon are quieter and cooler. Arriving at 8 am or after 4 pm fits this plan. Knossos Palace tickets for those hours also spare you the queue and the heat.
The site is busy all year, and it is busiest in summer. Crowds are smaller in spring and autumn. Summers at Heraklion are warm to hot and dry. At the airport July averages a daily high of 30.3 °C, and August reaches 30.2 °C. April averages 20.1 °C and October 24.0 °C. July gets only 0.8 mm of rain.
The site has little shade. Take plenty of water, a hat and sunscreen. Sunglasses help too. The paths have dirt and stones, so wear light clothes and comfortable walking shoes or trainers. Flip-flops, sandals and heels are a poor choice on this ground.
Photos for personal use are allowed. Tripods and large professional equipment need written permission in advance. Commercial shoots need advance permission too. Drones need special authorisation before they fly over the archaeological zone.
Do not block the paths or interrupt tour groups while you take photos. Families avoid letting children climb on the ancient structures. Strollers are hard to push in places because the ground is rocky. Read these rules before you carry Knossos Palace tickets to the gate.
Travel tips pair the palace with the Heraklion Archaeological Museum. The museum needs about 3 hours. It closes on the same six days as the palace. Backpacks and other bulky items go into its ground-floor cloakroom. Tips differ on the order: one says see the museum first, another says after the palace.
Allow at least 2 hours for the palace. A thorough visit takes longer, and a tour group adds more time. Book ahead, because lines form at the ticket booth and the queue stands in the sun. Knossos Palace tickets bought in advance remove that wait.