Morosini Fountain on Venizelou square in Heraklion, Crete, built in 1628
Heraklion is an important shipping port and ferry dock. The public can take ferries and boats from Heraklion to a multitude of destinations including Thira, Rhodes, Egypt, Haifa and mainland Greece.

Airport

Heraklion International Airport, or Nikos Kazantzakis Airport is located about 5km east of the city. The airport is named after Herkalion native Nikos Kazantzakis, a Greek writer and philosopher. It is the second busiest airport of Greece, mostly due to the fact that Crete is a major destination for tourists during summer. There are regular domestic flights to and from Athens, Thessaloniki and Rhodes with Aegean Airlines and Olympic Airlines. Cyprus Airlines flies to Larnaca via Rhodes. Furthermore, Sky Express operates direct flights to Aegean islands such as Rhodes, Santorini, Samos, Mytilini and Ikaria. During the summer period, traffic is intense and the flight destinations are from all over Europe (mostly Germany, UK, Italy and Russia). The airfield is shared with the 126 Combat Group of the Hellenic Air Force.

Sporting teams

The city hosts three soccer clubs:

• OFI Crete in Heraklion, plays in the first division.
• Ergotelis FC - in Heraklion, plays in the first division.

Both OFI FC and Ergotelis FC use the Pankretio Stadium, which was built for the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics.

• Atsalenios - Football Club of Heraklion which plays in the third division.

This article is being published under the General Public Licence GNU and is retrieved by the Free Encyclopedia Wikipedia - Keyword "Iraklion".

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