It has been a month since Knossos was officially declared a UNESCO World Heritage monument—because apparently it was not already obvious that a 4,000-year-old palace might be worth protecting. The new title has not changed much for visitors, except that now they can say they queued at an officially world-class ruin. And you can view the most recent pictures from the site at Patris.
And queue they do. Every morning, by 9:00 a.m., the line snakes across the dusty forecourt like a slow-moving python, filled with tourists in floppy hats, clutching plastic bottles of lukewarm water. The August sun bakes the scene. Dehydration sets in. Tempers simmer alongside the asphalt.
“Is this the line for the Minoan civilization, or the Last Judgment?” asked one German visitor, fanning himself with his ticket.
By the time they reach the fabled Throne Room, the crowd has already become a test of endurance. Sweat trickles down legs, sunscreen drips into eyes, and small children mutiny. A British tourist, red as a tomato, said: “I always imagined the palace of King Minos would be majestic. I didn’t think the labyrinth was just the queue.”
A French couple, wedged into the shaded corner by the fresco of the Prince of the Lilies, shared their own revelation: “We came for history. We stayed for the heats.”
And yet, despite the procedural chaos, the delayed entry, the fainting spells, the overwhelming sense of Greek tragedy as endurance sport, nobody leaves. Knossos remains the one site in Crete that visitors will risk sunburn and sanity to see.
As one exhausted American finally declared, collapsing on a bench: “I came here to understand the Minoans, and now I think I do. They probably left because the line for the Throne Room was too long.”
