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Driving in Crete: The National Road, Village Lanes and Goats
The road along the north coast has a rule nobody tells you about, and the mountain lanes have goats.
/ 4 · Nights
What caught three drivers out in the first hour
Almost nobody arrives in Heraklion nervous about the driving. That starts on the north coast road, when the car behind does something that looks like a mistake and is really local grammar.
A van filled my mirror and then went round me while a truck came the other way. Twenty minutes later I was doing it myself.
I lost ten minutes to a flock on a lane above a village whose name I never caught. Nobody behind me minded.
We filled the tank in town on the first morning out of habit. By the third day the habit was the plan.
The small, cheap end of the listing
The full grid and its filters sit further down this page. These three come from the cheapest corner of it, which is also the corner these roads reward.
€/day
Cheapest band
The bottom of the listing
5 - 35 EUR/day
Lower quartile
The next step up
36 - 51 EUR/day
Median band
The middle of the listing
48 - 63 EUR/day
How the National Road actually works
The VOAK, signed E75, runs the length of the north coast and carries most of your kilometres. Some of it is motorway standard. Some is an old single lane each way with a broad shoulder beside it.
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1
Notice which road you are on
One line on the map covers both: sealed lanes with real slip roads, then two narrow lanes and a wide painted shoulder. Same road, different expectations.
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2
Drift right when a car grows in your mirror
On the old stretches the hard shoulder doubles as the slow lane. Move onto it smoothly, keep your speed, hold a straight line. You are not pulling over.
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3
Expect the pass to come down the middle
The overtaking driver takes the centre, not the far lane, because oncoming traffic has moved right too. For a second a road painted for two carries three cars across.
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4
Come off it for anything parked or merging
The shoulder is a habit, not a lane, and not maintained like one. Side roads join it with no slip, pickups stand on it, scooters ride it. Look well ahead.
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5
Flashed lights are information, not anger
A quick flash of hazards from the car you let past is a thank you. A headlight flash from oncoming traffic warns of something ahead: police, a stopped vehicle, animals.
South of the ridge the road changes character
The north coast is the built side of the island. Turn inland or south and the tarmac narrows, the gradients get serious, and the thing ahead stops being a car.
Goats count as traffic
Not a turn of phrase and not a photo stop. A flock crossing a lane moves at the pace it chooses, and waiting is the whole technique. Sheep are harder to see at dusk.
Some villages are one car wide
The street through a hill village can shrink to one car between stone walls. Someone reverses to the last gap, normally whoever has less road behind them.
Blind bends want the horn
A hairpin hides what is coming until you are in it. A short press on the horn before the blind ones is ordinary here and nobody reads it as rude.
Nothing here drives all four wheels
Not one of the 120 cars here has four-wheel drive. It matters less than people expect, because the mountain roads that lead somewhere are sealed.
Where the fuel is, and where it runs out
Stations cluster along the north coast and thin out the moment you climb or head south. None of that matters if the tank is a decision rather than an afterthought.
In town, before anything else
Heraklion and the coast around it hold most of the pumps on this half of the island. Start any long day full.
Along the National Road
Frequent enough that nobody plans around them. Rethymno is about 80 km west, Agios Nikolaos and Elounda 65 to 70 km east.
The climb inland
A village may have one pump, and it can be shut for lunch, shut on a Sunday, or shut because it is that kind of afternoon.
The south coast and the Messara plain
Matala is roughly 70 km south and the plain between is farmland. Fill before you leave the coast road, and carry some cash: the smallest pumps are likeliest to want it.
Once you turn off the north coast, treat half a tank as empty.
The old town, and where the car sleeps
The centre of Heraklion sits inside Venetian walls and still drives like it. Streets are short and narrow, and the harbour traffic thins out late.
That does not make a car pointless. It means the car is for leaving town rather than crossing it: the port, the market and the Venetian harbour with the Koules fortress beside it are all a walk.
Size settles the rest. Seventy-one of the 120 cars here are compacts, and a compact slots into gaps a family car drives past, in town and in the villages. Small Cars
What decides it
- Inside the walls
- narrow and one way
- Around the harbour
- paid lots, full first
- Your room
- ask about a space
- Your car
- the smaller the simpler
Which car is going to cope with all this
Read the listing and the island explains itself. Of the 120 cars bookable here, 71 are compacts, 23 are SUVs, 21 are family cars, 11 are cabriolets, 7 are minivans and 5 are premium. That shape is the shape of the roads: a narrow car is easier on a village lane and no slower where the limit is what holds you back.
The gearbox is the decision to make first. Eighty-eight of those cars are manual and 32 are automatic, so an automatic is the scarce thing here and summer dates take them earliest. If a hill start on a gradient with a van waiting behind you is not something you want to meet cold, set that filter before you compare prices. Automatics
The routes themselves, with real distances and honest times, have a page of their own. Day Trips
The numbers that are not up for discussion
Greece drives on the right, and signs beat the table below every time.
| Where | Limit | What that looks like in Crete |
|---|---|---|
| Motorway | 130 km/h | The rebuilt stretches of the National Road. |
| Dual carriageway outside towns | 110 km/h | Uncommon on this island. Read the sign. |
| Open road | 90 km/h | The older National Road and most roads inland. |
| Built-up area | 50 km/h | Villages included, where it matters most. |
Long runs of the National Road are posted well under 130.
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First time behind the wheel in Crete
On the older two-lane stretches, yes: it is local habit rather than written rule. Ease right, hold your speed, and come back out for junctions and anything parked. On the motorway sections, stay in lane.
Move right, steadily, and keep your line. The pass was planned on the assumption that you would, which is why it looks alarming and rarely is. Do not brake hard and do not swerve.
Whoever has less road behind them, or whoever is nearer a gap in the wall. It is settled in three seconds with a hand out of the window, and it is why you booked something small.
Only by planning badly. Pumps are frequent along the north coast and thin out fast once you head inland or south, and a village station can be shut at lunch or on a Sunday.
It is 130 km/h on motorway, 110 on dual carriageway, 90 on the open road and 50 in built-up areas, with signs overriding all of it. The alcohol limit is 0.05%, and 0.02% for new drivers.
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