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Phantoms are said to emerge on 17 May every year from the sea mists and ride into the deserted little fortress at Frangokastello (see Frangokastello). They are the ghosts of Chatzimichalis Dalianis (see Chatzimichalis Dalianis) and his men, massacred by the Turks here in 1821.

Zeus ravished Europa beneath this huge plane tree near the Roman ruins of Gortys. As a result, the tree is said never to shed its leaves, even in winter.

In the myth of King Minos (one of the sons of Zeus and Europa), his queen Pasiphae bore a child, half bull and half man, after coupling with the sacred bull of Zeus. Minos imprisoned this monster, the Minotaur, in a tortuous maze, the subterranean labyrinth.

Chania and Rethymno quickly fall to an attack by Turks in 1645. Venetian seapower enables the Venetian capital of Candia (modern Irakleio) to resist a 21-year siege, but Venice finally surrenders in 1669. The Cretans rise too against the Turks. The first major rebellion begins in 1770 in mountainous Sfakia and is led by Ioannis Daskalogiannis. It ends badly, however, with Sfakia conquered.

Minos demanded tribute of youths and maidens from the Athenians after defeating them in war. The victims were given to the Minotaur, but Theseus, prince of Athens, slew the Minotaur and escaped the labyrinth with the help of Minos’s daughter Ariadne, who gave him a ball of thread to retrace his steps.

El Greco’s only painting to be seen in Crete (in the Historical Museum in Knosos).

In 1905 Eleftherios Venizelos – a minister in Prince George’s governorship of Crete – calls for a nationalist revolution and in 1908 the Cretan Assembly declares union (enosis ) with Greece.

On a hilltop above Paleokastro, a Venetian keep shares the peak with the ruins of the Hellenistic city of Polyrinia, which thrived until the Saracen invasion of the 9th century. Stone from Hellenistic buildings, already 1,000 years old when the Venetians arrived, seems to have been incorporated into the castle walls.

In 1204 the Republic of Venice took control of Crete and the Aegean islands.