Chania walls

The Venetians held Crete from 1212, relying for centuries on the old Byzantine fortification on the Castello hill near the port, but the ruinous raid of the pirate Barbarossa in 1538 prompted a grander scheme. The new walls, designed by Michele Sanmicheli and completed in 1568, formed an almost regular quadrangle with a perimeter of 3,085 metres, the northern side being the jetty. They did not save the city: in 1645 the Turks invaded and took Chania after a 56-day siege with heavy losses.

The western wall survives best, the eastern wall almost entire, but the southern and northern sections are gone, the former demolished in 1911 to make way for the Municipal Market. Four corner bastions remain: San Salvatore, Schiavo with its circular Lando revelino, Santa Lucia, and Sabionera by the port. A fifth bastion, the piattaforma, stood mid-south with two above it, all lost. The dry moat ran 1,942 metres, 10 deep and 50 wide. Three main gates, including the Rethymno Gate, have vanished. The Genoese tower, possibly from Pescatore's brief rule of 1206-1210, survives half-ruined behind Firkas, while the lighthouse tower on the jetty, octagonal, hexagonal and circular in its three tiers, was repaired by the Egyptians around 1830-1840.