From all the short trips with your rental Car that you could take from Rethymno, the most worthwhile is to the monastery of Arkadi. Arkadi is something of a national Cretan shrine to the 19th century struggle for independence- aside from it's historical resonance, the monastery's striking architecture and highly scenic location are reason enough to visit. 

The monastery and its history 

Before its notoriety, Arkadi was one of the richest monasteries in Crete and well known stopover for travellers, as well as being a center of Resistance. Pashley relates a story of events in the 1820, when eight Muslims, who had occupied the monastery to pacify local rebels, where captured and put to death, in relation, many of the buildings where burned. 

During the 1866 rebelion Arkadi served as a Cretan stronghold in which, as the Turks took the upper hand, hundreds of Cretan guerrillas and their families took refuge. Here they were surrounded by Turkish army until, after a siege of two days, the defences where finally breached on November 9, 1866. As the attackers poured in, the ammunition stored in the monastery exploded- deliberately fired, according to the accepted version of events, on the orders of the abbot. Hundreds were killed in the initial blast, Cretan and Turk alike and the most of the surviving defenders were put to death by the enraged assailants. Though Cretes liberty was still some way of at that stage, today the monastery remains the most potent symbol of the struggle (there are celebrations of the anniversary of the blast on November 7-9 each year). More recently the monastery lent assistance to guerrilla fighters during world was II. 

Nowadays you can peer into the roofless vault beside the cloister where the explosions took place, and wander about the rest of the well-restored grounds.Despite the carnage, the bulk of the monastery buildings, including the others around the central cloister, were relatively unscathed and Arkadi is still a working monastery.Of the surviving buildings the church is the most impressive, its rich mix of styles placing it among the finest Venetians structures left in Crete. It's highly decorative facade, dating from 1587, used to future on the Greek 100 drachma note. It seems startlingly out-of-place, isolated here in the Cretan countryside. The rest of the monastery is mainly seventeenth century and more familiar in layout and style. Across the courtyard from the scene of the explosion a small museum (same ticket) devoted to the exploits of the defenders of the faith contains a variety of mementos and tributes, blood -stained clothing and commemorative medals. 

With your Venus car rental car, the old road up to Arkadi is an attractive trip itself.Take the route east out of Rethymno via Perivolia and then follow the signs at Platanias which lead under the high way towards the monastery via Adele and Pigi village. As you climb into the foothills, the road and the valley through which it runs gradually narrow until, at the end, it's a real ravine.This opens out quite suddenly into the small plain at the centre of which stands the monastery. You will pass a modern monument to the martyrs of independence - with displayed human skulls- and arrive at a huge spreading tree where the bus stops and cars park.There is food available at a rather unappealing cafe-taverna, and this is also a quiet place to picnic, either on benches around the outside of the monastery or out in the meadows which surround it. There's an inviting alternative road back to the coast through some picturesque wooded hill country dotted with interesting villages. Directly in front of the monastery a paved road cuts away to the northeast before it reaches Elefterna, 5Km away, and ancient Eleftherna, followed by the potters village of Margarites.