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Frangokastello - Crete, GREECE

Frangokastello lies 3km off the main road,just under 10 km from the junction with the Hora-Vrisses road the castle makes an eazy target to aim for. For peaceful lassitude on the beach Frangokastello is still among the best spots in Crete, with fine sand , crystal-ciear water (with good snorkelling opportunities), and very little effort required either to get here or to find food and drink once you've arrived. Around Frangokastello castle is the best part of the sand, sheltered and slowly shelving; for solitude head westwards along the shoreline-less soft sand and more wind, but still very pleasand. There are beaches to the east, too: follow the coastal path for ten to fifteen minutes and you'ii arrive at the top of the low cliff overloooking perhaps three quarters of a mile of beautiful, deserted sand and rocks.

Frangokastello castle, so impressively four-square from a distance, turns out close up to be a mere shell.Nothing but the bare walls survive, with a tower in each corner,and over the seaward entrance an escutcheon, whitch can just be made out as the Venetian Lion of St. Mark.Still, it's some shell.The fortress was originally built in 1371 to deter pirates and in an attempt to impose some order on Sfakia: a garrison was maintained here through the Venetian and Turkish occupations, controlling the plain as surely as it failed to tame the mountains (even today, the orange-pink walls look puny when you see them with the gray bulk of the mountains towering behind).

In 1828, Frangokastello was occupied by Hatzimihali Daliani a Greek adventurer attempting to spread the war of independence from the mainland  to Crete.Instead of taking to the hills as all sensible rebels  before  and since have done, he and his tiny force  attemted to make a stand in the castle. Predictably, they were massacred and their martyrdom became the fuel for yet more heroic legends of the pallikari.It is said that around of  17th of March the ghosts of Daliani and his army march from the castle:many of the local pleople believe that and they named this ''phainomeno'' DROSOULITES because of  the time they appear :minutes before sun arises. (in Crete "drosoula" is the morning drop).