It's too easy for these years to roll off your tongue without understanding them. As the time of Julius Ceasar is to us so the time of King Minos was to Julius Ceasar. Four thousand years ago the Minoan people built the Palace of Knossos from soft local stone. They built the hydraulic system to pipe fresh spring water six miles through terracotta pipes into their palace. They built a palace of 1400 rooms, so large, complex and unique that we still use their name for it, Labyrinth, today. 
Our guide today really had his mythology down pat. On our trip to the Palace he told us the story of King Minos who had asked the Gods for a supreme bull, the horns of the bull were a sacred symbol in Minoan culture. King Minos promised to sacrifice the bull as an offering to the Gods if he was given it, as a way to prove his dedication to them. The Gods granted his wish, but Minos sacrificed a lesser bull and kept the sacred bull for his breeding stables. The Gods couldn't allow Minos to think he could deceive them so his punishment was for his first son to be born a minotaur, half man, half bull. Now you know where the Mino in Minotaur comes from. Minos had the Labyrinth built to house his son to keep him away from the people. 
Sir Arthur Evans was the lead archaeologist leading the restoration through the early 20th century. Much of the site has been reconstructed in concrete, so whilst it is incredibly old, much of it looks confected. The Minoans lost Knossos a number of times to earthquakes, They rebuilt at one stage incorporating wood into the construction to give their structures more elasticity. The Timbers buried under ground for millennia all rotted away, making it impossible to restore complete structures, which is why so much has been rebuilt with concrete. 
The site also contains the oldest theatres in human history, since it is a ground structure this is perfectly original and really can be experienced in its somewhat decayed but original form. 
The highlight of the day had to be that Gab and I got some alone time on the tour, the Emerson met up with a girl she met at Kids club, and Max and her older brother were mates 3 minutes later, leaving Gab and I free to roam the ruins in relative peace!
On to Heraklion and with lots of the shops shut we took a stroll through the shops until we came upon some sort of street festival. A great big line had formed with the tens of people bouncing in that shoulder holding greek way. There wasn't much "Heraklion" to be had though it was mostly a cosmopolitan area. I found the real Alpha Weiss beer, and Max found Slugterra toys he just had to have.
Back to the boat and the kids spent time in the pool for most of the afternoon. Emerson returned from an hour or so with one family having acquired their US accent, and Max met his new hero - the dad of a kid he was playing with works at Apple and has been to E3 4 times!
With nothing planned for Mykonos tomorrow we left the kids to entertain themselves in their clubs after dinner while Gab and I checked out the adult bars - NOYCE!