Palaikastro

On the steep hill called Kastri, which divides the beaches of Kouremenos and Chiona at Crete’s easternmost coast near Sitia, stood a fortress known to the Venetians as Paleo Castro, though it had earlier borne the name Rizokastro. The site was probably fortified in the Byzantine period, and the Venetians later raised their own castle here, quite likely over the remnants of a Minoan fort as well. The stronghold was abandoned early, before the Ottomans took Crete in the seventeenth century, and by 1668 the Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi noted it lay in ruins. Today almost nothing survives above ground, and the visitor is free to wander the hill and imagine the older defences beneath their feet. The place is a quiet spot of scattered stones and sea views, more suggestive than substantial.