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Itanos was particularly powerful community during the Greek era and it was flourishing by the seventh century BC. Itanos was continuously at war with its neighbours Praisos, and later Hierapytna.
In the 8th century AD Itanos was destroyed in an earthquake but the inhabitants stayed and rebuilt the town. Only in the 15th century after attacks by pirates the town was finally destroyed and deserted. Because the west of Crete slowly elevates upwards and the east odf the island is slowly sinking (6 to 9 meters in the last 2000 years, mainly caused by earthquakes) parts of the harbour of Itanos have now sunk into the sea.
Herodotos was the first Greek historian who mentioned Itanos. The archeological site of Itanos is open to the public. It is possible to see the ruins of houses, city walls and Christian churches. Many Greek inscriptions were found in situ; the most famous one, kept now in the monastery of Toplou, relates a decision by the Roman Senate about Itanos' conflicts and territorial disputes with the neighbor cities Praisos and Hierapytna.
The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.