Tabakaria / Halepa (Chania)

East of the centre, Halepa is the dignified old consular and bourgeois district — neoclassical villas, the former government house, quiet residential streets that feel a world away from the harbour bustle. Below it on the shore sit the Tabakaria, the stone shells of nineteenth-century tanneries, now a slowly reviving stretch of sea-edge cafés, studios and the occasional restaurant in a converted shell. The pull here is atmosphere and walking rather than a dense run of tables: faded grandeur uphill, raw industrial-romantic ruins by the water. Go for the architecture and a coffee with a view, not for a packed dining strip.