Chania Lighthouse

The old Venetian Harbor of Chania has a narrow entrance, guarded by a historic lighthouse. It was built by the Venetians around the year 1600, to protect the city from invaders and pirates. The Ottoman Turks captured Chania in 1645, and the lighthouse was abandoned and left to ruin. Egyptians rebuilt the lighthouse in 1864. Now it’s one of the most recognizable landmarks of Old Town Chania.

The other day, after an early dinner on the promenade, we decided to walk out to the lighthouse. It was that hour before sunset when everything is bathed in a lovely golden light. The old wall was long, and quite narrow in several places. I was thankful it wasn’t windy, since there was no safety rail! The Bastion of Agios Nikolaos (St. Nicholas) had been largely destroyed, but there were a few walls still standing.

There were wonderful views from up on the wall and the bastion. To the east was a rocky peninsula called Akrotiri. To the south, beyond Chania’s Old Town, clouds nestled against the White Mountains (which are made of limestone, hence the name). With an elevation over 8,000 feet, these mountains were tall enough to get snow during the winter, and much taller than those we’d seen in the Peloponnese.

The lighthouse was made of stone blocks and rose to height of 85 feet. Each section had a cross-section of a different shape: the bottom was an octagon, the middle was a hexadecagon (16 sides), and the top was a circle.

We walked back along the wall to the promenade encircling the Venetian Harbor. Now we had a better feel for distances, and could see that the entrance to the harbor was not very wide, perhaps about 300 feet. The Venetians could stretch a chain from the lighthouse to the Firkas Fortress on the bank, to prevent ships from entering the harbor.

We enjoyed the sunset and the continually changing light on the Chania Lighthouse.

Postscript

On the way home, I stopped in a small shop to buy a postcard. It was the Venetian Harbor and Old Town, viewed through a round window. The shopkeeper explained that the photo had been taken from the lighthouse, which is open to the public just one day each year. Photo credit: Babis Maroulakis