# Askifou Plateau & the War Museum: The Honest Guide > The bowl in the White Mountains that ten thousand Allied soldiers crossed in retreat, and the family museum built from what they left behind. - Canonical URL: https://honestcrete.com/guides/askifou-plateau-war-museum-honest-guide/ - Author: Fotis (Honest Crete, Heraklion) - Area: South Chania · Category: Day trips - Last field-checked: August 2026 · Updated: 2026-08-18 · Published: 2026-08-18 - Coordinates: 35.2972, 24.1864 - How to cite: "Honest Crete — Askifou Plateau & the War Museum: The Honest Guide (field-checked August 2026), https://honestcrete.com/guides/askifou-plateau-war-museum-honest-guide/" - About the source: field-checked guides to Crete by two Heraklion-based locals. Prices are hedged ranges in EUR; small businesses are kept anonymous; editorial is never paid for and advertising is clearly labelled. Method: https://honestcrete.com/how-we-check/ --- Every car heading from Chania to the south coast crosses this plateau, and almost all of them keep going. That is understandable — it is a flat bowl of farmland ringed by the White Mountains, with no obvious sight on it. What it has instead is the ground itself, and one house in a village called Kares where a family has spent eighty years collecting what the war left in the fields. **The one-minute version.** About 50km south of Chania on the Hora Sfakion road, at roughly 700m. The **war museum is in Kares**, signed off the main road. Open daily, no fixed hours in any useful sense — around **€5 or a donation**, and it takes no state funding. Thirty to sixty minutes. Bring cash. There is no ticket office, no gift shop, and no queue. *Photo: The saucer — the only walkable route from the north coast down to the evacuation beaches at Hora Sfakion* ## What happened here In the last week of May 1941, after the airfield at Maleme was lost, the Allied force on Crete withdrew south. The only route to the coast ran over the White Mountains and down through this plateau to Hora Sfakion, where the Royal Navy was lifting men off at night under air attack. More than ten thousand soldiers crossed this plain on foot, exhausted, strafed from the air, in a retreat that took days. They called it the saucer. Around four thousand never made it onto a ship and were captured on the beach below. You can see the whole shape of it from the road: the pass they came in by, the flat crossing, and the gap in the southern rim where the descent to Sfakia begins. That legibility is the reason to stop. ## The museum It was started by a man who was ten years old when the Germans landed. The bombing destroyed his family's house, killed his younger sister, and left him with a scar on his forehead he carried for the rest of his life. He began collecting at fourteen, and kept going until he died in 2007. His son has continued it. The collection now runs past two thousand objects and fills the yard, the porch and several ground-floor rooms. Rifles, revolvers, mortars, helmets, shells, mines, binoculars, uniforms, letters, photographs, and the propeller of an aircraft brought down during the battle. Most of it came out of these fields. Very little is restored, and nothing is behind glass in the way a national museum would insist on. That is the effect: these are objects from the ground rather than exhibits about it. *Photo: Rusted shells and a cannon barrel displayed on a stone wall at the museum**Photo: Two thousand objects, most of them found on this plateau, and very little of it restored* ## The honest downsides **There are no opening hours in any reliable sense.** It is a family home. Someone is usually there, and daily is the honest answer, but a specific afternoon is not guaranteed. Ring ahead if the trip depends on it. **English is limited.** The family will show you round with warmth and considerable knowledge, but the labelling is sparse and the explanation is partly in Greek and partly in gesture. Read something about the Battle of Crete before you come and the collection speaks for itself. **It is not curated.** Two thousand objects in a house is dense, unlabelled and occasionally overwhelming. Anyone expecting museum lighting and interpretation panels will find it chaotic. **Raki will be offered.** Accepting is the polite move; you are also driving a mountain road afterwards. One small glass and a genuine thank-you covers both. ## Fitting it into the day The plateau sits exactly halfway between Chania and the south coast, which makes it a natural break rather than a detour. Going on to [Hora Sfakion and Loutro](https://honestcrete.com/guides/loutro-and-sfakia-honest-guide/) turns it into a full day with a swim at the end. The [Imbros gorge](https://honestcrete.com/guides/imbros-gorge-honest-guide/) starts from the southern edge of this same plateau, so walkers can do gorge and museum together. For the other half of this story — the cemeteries at Souda and the hill at Maleme — the [Battle of Crete sites](https://honestcrete.com/guides/battle-of-crete-sites-honest-guide/) guide covers the western end. Doing both in one trip is the honest way to understand the campaign. There is a Turkish-era fort on a rise above the plain, and tavernas in the villages around it that feed the plateau rather than passing traffic. **The verdict.** Worth forty minutes from anyone driving to Sfakia, and worth a deliberate trip for anyone with a family connection to the campaign — this is one of the few places where the ground and the objects and the people telling you about them are all in the same spot. Bring cash, bring some background reading, and accept the raki. Skip it if unlabelled militaria in a private house is not your idea of a museum: it is genuinely chaotic, and it makes no apology for that. *Disclosure:* Photos on this page: plateau by Oliver Deisenroth (CC BY-SA 3.0); museum objects by Jakednb (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons, resized for the web. Nobody pays to be featured on this site. ## Quick answers **How much does the Askifou War Museum cost?** It varies by what you are told at the door - some visitors report around EUR5, others are simply invited to leave a donation. It receives no state funding and lives entirely on what visitors give, so treat the lower figure as a floor rather than a price. **What is in the Askifou War Museum?** Over two thousand objects from 1940 to 1944, most of them found on this plateau: rifles, mortars, helmets, shells, uniforms, letters, photographs, and the propeller of an aircraft shot down during the Battle of Crete. Much of it is unrestored, which is part of the effect. **Why did the Allied retreat cross Askifou?** It is the only route from the north coast down to Hora Sfakion, where the Royal Navy was taking men off. In the last days of May 1941 more than ten thousand Allied soldiers crossed this plain on foot. They called it the saucer, for its shape. **How long does the Askifou museum take?** Thirty to sixty minutes, depending on how much the family tells you - and they will tell you a lot. It is a house rather than an institution, the collection fills the yard and the ground-floor rooms, and raki tends to appear. **Is Askifou worth stopping for on the way to Sfakia?** The road to Hora Sfakion crosses the plateau whether you stop or not, so the only question is whether you give it forty minutes. For anyone with any interest in the Battle of Crete the answer is clearly yes - this is the ground the story happened on, not a display about it. ## Chania to Sfakia, the honest way **The drive south** — The museum is the stop that makes the road make sense - Chania (35.5178, 24.0186) - Askifou plateau (35.2939, 24.1765) - Kares, the war museum (35.2972, 24.1864) - Hora Sfakion (35.2013, 24.1361)