Varsamakia

The tower at Varsamakia stands beside the church of Agios Dimitrios, a lonely survivor from the Venetian period, probably raised in the fifteenth century. It once guarded a Catholic Franciscan convent dedicated to Saint Grigorio, which occupied this spot during Venetian rule; the monastic community has long vanished, and the tower itself is now in poor condition. The site lies about five kilometres east of Sfinari, a village in the Kissamos region of western Crete, in a deserted area north of Kampos. The name Varsamakia, sometimes spelled Varsamachia, now attaches to this empty landscape rather than to any settlement. What remains is a single defensive tower, its original purpose clear enough even as the stonework decays, a quiet relic of the island's Venetian centuries and the religious orders that once sought shelter here.