Rethymno Audio Tour: Mosques, Myths & the Fortress of Time

On your right is the Archaeological Museum of Rethymno. Notice it looks an awful lot like a church? Good eye. This is actually the Church of Saint Francis, built by the wealthy Barozzi family around 1530. It even gives this road its name, Agiou Fragkiskou, which translates to Saint Francis Street.

You are looking at one of the smallest museums in the world. But what it lacks in size, it makes up for in character. Check your screen to see what they packed inside. That is a beautiful marble statue of Aphrodite standing in the old nave, the soaring central hall of the church. Also, take a look at this unique artifact on your app. It is an ancient Greek inscription from roughly 500 BC that explicitly outlaws excessive drinking. Clearly, local authorities have been managing rowdy crowds for millennia.

Since we will return here at the end of our tour, you might want to save a visit inside for later. When you are ready, we can head to the next stop.

On your left is a massive stone fortress wrapping around a rocky promontory, punctuated by a smooth spherical dome rising above its irregular defensive walls. This is the Fortezza, which simply means fortress in Italian. It was built by the Venetians in the late sixteenth century, and it stands on a hill called Paleokastro, or old castle.

The Venetians originally tried to protect the city with a different set of walls starting in fifteen forty, but they learned a harsh lesson. Those earlier walls were weak, and when the Ottoman admiral Uluç Ali Reis attacked in fifteen seventy-one, the city was easily captured and sacked. After that disaster, and with the recent loss of Cyprus, Venice decided Rethymno needed serious protection. It was their third most important city in Crete, after Heraklion and Chania.

So, they brought in a military engineer named Sforza Pallavicini. He designed this new citadel using the Italian bastion system. A bastion is essentially an angled, projecting piece of a wall that lets defenders fire in multiple directions at once, eliminating blind spots. Building it was a monumental undertaking. If you look at your screen, you can see a long stretch of these formidable walls. To construct this perimeter of thirteen hundred and seven meters between fifteen seventy-three and fifteen eighty, it took the grueling labor of exactly one hundred and seven thousand, one hundred and forty-two Cretans, alongside forty thousand, two hundred and five animals. They kept very detailed records.

The original plan was to move the entire town inside these walls for safety. But once built, they realized the Fortezza was too small to hold everyone. So, it just became a secure neighborhood for the Venetian administration, while the regular citizens remained vulnerable down below. Ironically, the fortress itself was never truly secure. It lacked a defensive ditch, and its protective upper walls were strangely low.

When the Ottomans returned in sixteen forty-six during the Fifth Ottoman-Venetian War, the townspeople fled inside the Fortezza. But disease, starvation, and a lack of ammunition quickly took their toll, and the Venetians surrendered in just a few weeks. The Ottomans moved in and tweaked the architecture. They built a ravelin, which is a triangular outer wall to protect the main gate, and they converted the Venetian Cathedral of Saint Nicholas into a mosque. You can check your app to see the Sultan Ibrahim Mosque and its striking dome today.

Over the centuries, the Fortezza evolved. By the early twentieth century, it was packed with residential houses, and at one point, it even held the local prison. After World War Two, the city expanded, the residents moved out, and the modern houses were demolished to preserve the historic structures.

Today, the site is proudly managed by the Ministry of Culture and is open to the public daily from ten in the morning until eight at night. Take a moment to appreciate this immense achievement of engineering. When you are ready, we can head to the next stop.

Look for the flat pale stone facade featuring four fluted columns that frame three ornate lion-head spouts pouring water into the basins below. Much like the massive Fortezza we explored earlier, this is a prime piece of Venetian engineering, though its purpose was entirely life saving rather than military.

Back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Rethymno had a serious problem. The population was booming, and the city was running out of good water. The old wells and cisterns were failing, and the previous water source, the San Zuane fountain, had been heavily damaged by severe rains in 1592. By the time the Venetian commander Alvise Rimondi took charge in 1623, the city water supply was basically a trickle of bad news.

So, he decided to fix it himself. According to his own records, Rimondi did not use a single drop of public funds. He personally paid to repair an aqueduct bringing water from a spring half a mile away, and he funded the construction of this beautiful new fountain, which was likely completed around 1626. Because it is fed directly by that aqueduct pipe, there is no large water tank hidden behind the wall.

Notice how the architecture resembles a classical Roman facade. Those four half-columns are topped with Corinthian capitals, meaning the uppermost sections of the columns are intricately carved to look like stylized leaves. These were crafted from a soft, local stone called Alfa limestone. The columns divide the wall into three neat sections, each featuring a water spout. The spouts are carved as a mascherone, an architectural face or mask. Here, they look like lions, but if you look closely, the manes are actually made of carved leaves and twisting vines. The three stone troughs at the bottom were incredibly practical, serving as the daily watering spot for the city horses and livestock.

Up at the very top center, Rimondi made sure everyone knew who picked up the tab. That carved shield crowning the monument is his family coat of arms.

When the Ottomans later took control of the city, they added a large dome over the fountain, turning it into what they called the Great Fountain. The dome has long since collapsed, but you can still see the single stone pillar standing nearby that used to support it. The area around the fountain also gained a darker reputation during this era, as a nearby plane tree became the grim spot where rebels and criminals were executed.

Thankfully, today it is simply a peaceful landmark that remains open twenty-four hours a day for anyone who wanders by. Enjoy the atmosphere, and when you are ready, we can head to the next stop.

On your left is the Neradje Mosque, a rectangular stone building defined by three semicircular domes and a soaring minaret. Like several landmarks we have seen, it has played many roles. Originally, this was Santa Maria, a Catholic monastery for the Augustinian order. When the Ottomans conquered the city, they repurposed it into a mosque.

Take a look at your screen to see the intricate doorway. Those Corinthian columns and Renaissance details are based on the work of Italian architect Sebastiano Serlio. The towering minaret, which is the slender balcony lined tower used for the Islamic call to prayer, was added much later in 1890 by local engineer Georgios Daskalakis. It is still the tallest structure in town.

Following a forced population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1924, the Muslim community left Crete entirely. The building was then transformed once again this time into a music school. It is open daily from 10 AM to 4 PM if you want to peek inside. The overlapping eras of Rethymno are perfectly preserved right here. Whenever you are ready, we can walk to our next stop.

Look for the tall, pale beige building with high arched windows and a reddish tiled gable roof, sitting just behind a weathered stone perimeter wall.

Here we are again at the Archaeological Museum of Rethymno. Well, for now, anyway. As we noted earlier, it is currently housed in the former Church of Saint Francis. The museum itself, however, has been a bit of a nomad over the years. Its collection began coming together in the late nineteenth century in a different part of the old town. By 1954, it had moved into a Venetian administration building, and from 1991 to 2015, it sat in a pentagonal building right across from the Fortezza, the massive fortress we explored a little while ago.

Eventually, the city decided this vast collection needed a new, permanent, purpose-built home. While authorities figure out exactly how and where to build that, the artifacts are taking an extended vacation here in this restored sixteenth-century church.

Inside, you will find items spanning thousands of years, from Neolithic tools carved in 3500 BC right up through the Roman era. The sheer density of history packed into this temporary space is remarkable.

Take a look at your screen for a glimpse of one of the more fascinating pieces inside. This is a larnax, which is an ancient Minoan terracotta funerary chest used to hold remains. This particular one was unearthed at the Armenoi necropolis, a sprawling ancient cemetery, and dates back to roughly 1320 BC. Notice the vivid hunting scene painted across the side. It shows how the Minoans preferred to carry the action and vibrancy of their daily lives directly into the afterlife.

There are also artifacts that highlight the later classical periods of the island. Glance at your app one more time for a closer look at the marble statue of Aphrodite we saw earlier. Found in the ancient settlement of Lappa, it is actually a Roman copy of a much older Greek original, carved around 100 BC.

The museum also holds some true historical puzzles, like a stone ceremonial altar inscribed with Linear A. That is an ancient script used by the Minoans that modern scholars still cannot fully read. It is a quiet reminder that no matter how much we dig up, the past still keeps a few secrets.

Since this is the final stop on our walk, I will leave you here to explore the exhibits at your own pace. The museum is open Wednesday through Monday from 9 AM to 5 PM, and is closed on Tuesdays. It has been an absolute pleasure wandering through Rethymno with you today, take care.