Castle of Mylopotamos

The Castle of Mylopotamos, also known as Castel Milopotamo or Roumeli Castelli, survives only as a scatter of stones on the rocky coast at Panormos, a village 20 kilometres west of Rethymnon in northern Crete. It was built in the early thirteenth century by the Genoese pirate Enrico Pescatore, on a site thought to have held the Roman town of Panormos. The fortress was egg-shaped, running north to south, with seven towers and two gates, one facing the sea and one the south. When the Venetians took Crete they restored it, and a settlement grew around it which became the present-day village. In 1341 the Kapsokalives family besieged it to flush out Alex Kallergis, a Cretan who had joined the Venetians, but soon withdrew. Barbarossa destroyed the castle in 1538, though the Venetians rebuilt it. The Turks captured it in 1647, and a Venetian attempt to retake it under General Gildasi failed. Only a small fragment of wall remains.