The Maritime Museum of Crete is located at the entrance of the historical fortress “Firkas”. It was founded in 1973 in order to promote the nautical traditions and history of the island. The Museum cooperates and interacts with other Nautical Museums in Greece and abroad.
The permanent exhibition includes 2.500 items, such as relics, objects found in the bottom of the sea, paintings, maps, photographs, models of ships, nautical equipment etc. The exhibits are organized in units, in chronological order from the Copper Age until today. There is also a special exhibition of sea environment, with a rich collection of shells from different places of the world.
In the large hall on the second floor, there are exhibits from World War II, among others the model of the bridge of a torpedo boat. When the visitor stands here, tape-recorded sounds give the sense of a real torpedo boat moving across the sea.
The main exhibit of the museum is the reconstructed Minoan ship “Minoa”, a faithful copy of the ships that were sailing among the islands about 1500 years BC. “Minoa” is exhibited in one of the restored old arsenal buildings at the end of the Venetian harbor behind the marina.
Address: Akti Kountourioti, Venetian Port of Chania
