St. Mark's lions
Venice's marble on the gates five centuries.
Γεώργιος Γιαννόπουλος — CC BY-SA 3.0 · C messier — CC0 · Jebulon — CC0 · Jebulon — CC0
Venice and the Ottomans fought over Candia (Heraklion) from 1648 to 1669 — twenty-one years of trench and mine that made the city a European military legend and its literature epic. It fell on honourable-exit terms — bequeathing Crete two Ottoman centuries and minarets still on the townscape.
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Koules is Heraklion's sea warden: Venice's square fortress (1523-1540) on the harbour mole, nine-metre walls and St. Mark's marble lions over its gates — standing through the city's legendary siege: history's longest (21 years! 1648-1669) before falling to the Ottomans, whose name Koules (the water castle) outlived them. Its restored interior runs dim vaulted halls telling the siege, drowned ships' amphorae and centuried cannon — the roof its reward: city, mountains and the open Cretan sea, with the mole walk out to it Heraklion's first promenade. Around it the Venetian harbour lives on: coloured fishing boats and the Arsenali vaults — Venice's standing shipyards — and the walk completes at evening in the waterfront cafés: the fortress lit on the water is the city's finest picture.
Venice's marble on the gates five centuries.
City, mountains and Cretan sea in a round.
Venice's shipyards still standing.
Venetian harbour, 71202 Heraklion