The beach of Kato Zakros is an hour's drive from Sitia. Here you can combine a swim with a visit to the ruins of the Palace of Zakro, the only Minoan Palace to have been excavated in Eastern Crete. The Palace was built about 1700BC only to be destroyed a few hundred years later by the eruption of the volcano in Santorini and was never reinhabited. The site remained undisturbed until excavations brought a wide range of valuable artefacts to light, most of which can now be seen in the Archaeological Museums of Sitia and Heraklion.