My wife and I know Crete reasonably well. We have been holidaying on the "Great Island" off and on since the late 1970s. Crete was part of the Venetian empire from 1204, when the Byzantine empire sold or ceded the island to Venice, until 1669 when the Ottoman empire finally drove out the Venetians. The lovely town of Chaniá at the western end of the island was captured by the Turks earlier, in 1645. There is still a huge quantity of Venetian period architecture on Crete, and especially in Chaniá (aka Canea, Hania). The situation in this town is rather peculiar: it was badly damaged by the bombing of the port and the subsequent fighting in the Battle of Crete (May 1941) and during the early post-war years there was no money to restore the damage. Soon it was realized that the architectural heritage of Chaniá was very special, and no-one has been allowed to do any restoration at all, except under strict (and slow bureaucratic) control. Therefore the town is full of Venetian ruins. Many are used, roofless, as restaurants. Others are still shored up with timbers, waiting for the slow arrival of money and permissions. We stay at a hotel just around the corner from this doorway: The Hotel Palazzo, which is a delightful small hotel in a well-restored Venetian-period house. One cannot visit Crete, and Chaniá especially, without being aware of her troubled past, occupied by Rome, Byzantium, Venice, the Ottoman Turks; then freedom to join with Greece; but then Nazi occupation. Each phase fiercely resisted by brave insurgents, who were treated most barbarously by each of the successive occupying powers when they were captured.
As for Malta, I would love to go there also. Especially with her historic links with the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Squadron. But at the age of 81 travelling is becoming more difficult, alas.
Martin.