General Information of the Municipal Unit of Souda

It is worth stopping in Kalami and enjoying the amazing sunset overlooking the bay and the islet of Souda, but also to try moments of unique relaxation and gastronomic pleasure with coffee and tsikoudia in the traditional cafes, restaurants and taverns of the area. In the Municipal District of Aptera, in an area of ​​exceptional beauty, the visitor can tour the ancient city, Aptera. The foundation of the city is placed in the Geometric Age, but the period during which the city experienced its greatest prosperity, was the early Hellenistic years. The wall of the city is preserved in a length of about four kilometers, vaulted tanks from the time of Roman rule, as well as a bilateral sanctuary of the 5th to 4th century BC. In the same area is the Byzantine Monastery of Agios Ioannis and the unique architectural castles of the 19th century Palekastro and Indzedin, while on the northeast side of the port of Souda, on the homonymous islet, is the “Fortezza”, a Venetian fortress built with purpose of control of the bay by the Venetians. However, the history of the port dates back to the time of Mythology and goes back to the First and Second World Wars, due to its great geographical location and its political and military importance. Today, the Port of Souda, with a variety of uses (passenger, tourist, sailing, educational and fishing), offers its services hospitably and generously. Here you can visit the shops of the area, the Commercial Port, the island-era traditional settlement of Kato Souda, as well as the beach of Vlite with the wetland of the river Moroni, and the Allied cemetery of World War II . Finally, a few kilometers away from Chania, corners of history and tradition, picturesque alleys, remnants of the era of Ottoman rule and Byzantine churches, give a special color to the amphitheater built Tsikalaria. In the Art Village of Verekynthos and in the Craft Park there are shops, where visitors can buy handicrafts of unique artistic inspiration, but also take a tour of the modern typography museum of the newspaper “Haniotika Nea”.

APTERA (ROMAN TANKS-NECROPOLIS-BYZANTINE MONASTERY OF SAINT JOHN)

The ancient city of Aptera, is located in Palekastro near the current village of Megala Chorafia, Apokoronas province. It extends to the south of the Gulf of Souda on an elevated level plateau on which it developed from the geometric years. Aptera was one of the most important ancient cities of Crete. The origin of her name probably comes from the corresponding surname of Artemis: Artemis Aptera. The oldest epigraphic evidence of the name is found on the tablets of the linear B script of Knossos: A-pa-ta-wa (14th – 13th century). The first mention of its geographical position is given by the geographer Skylakas (5th century BC), then it is mentioned by Strabo (1st century BC – 1st century AD) and mentions Kissamos as its port , near the present village of Kalyves. Among the younger travelers, Pashley was the first in 1834 to correctly place the ancient city at Paleokastro. The identification was confirmed by the inscriptions and coins found there. Aptera, as a very important city-state of Crete, played a decisive role in the history of the island, in its domestic and foreign policy. Pausanias informs us that in 668 BC. Infinite archers fought on the side of Sparta during the Second Messinian War. Its habitation continued in the early Byzantine years. In the 7th century, it was destroyed by an earthquake.

SOUDA (THE SETTLEMENT, THE PORT, ISLAND – FORTRESS)

Souda is located 6.5 km east of the city of Chania, on the road to Rethymnon. It is a town built along the south coast of the Gulf of Souda. It is etymologically derived from the Latin word suda = trenches, ruler, narrow passage, as the English traveler Pasley mentions. It is not certain when it first appeared, certainly before the Middle Ages and probably before the conquest of Crete by the Arabs, in 823. During the Venetian rule, the Venetians had made salt pans, with an annual production of 110,000 muzzles of salt. The Turks called the area Tuzla, which means salt in the Turkish language, because salt is called “tuz” in Turkish, and from this they named the whole area Tuzla. In May 1822, 84 trucks landed in Tuzla, accompanied by 40 warships, 10,000 Turks, Egyptians and Albanians led by Mehmet Ali’s son-in-law, Hasan Pasha, to quell the Cretan revolution. In 1870, Rauf Pasha drained the salt flats and built a settlement there, which he named Aziziye in honor of Sultan Abdul Aziz, and settled 150 Turkish families living on the islet of the fortress. Today, it is the district of Kato Souda. During the Cretan State 1898 – 1913, Souda became the center of interest of the Great Powers. During this period, the Holy Temple of Agios Nikolaos was built. Souda was tested in both World War II and World War II. On the coast towards Akrotiri, the 27,000-tonne ocean liner Minevaska was torpedoed during World War I. During World War II, it was used as a refueling port for the British fleet. Churchill, wanted to make it an “amphibious acropolis” in his expression (Memoirs B2, 619) but did not succeed as he himself admits. (pp. 343 – 346, Stergios Spanakis, Crete Volume II, Published by Vangelis Ap. Sfakianakis, Heraklion, Crete).

The Gulf of Souda, located 8 km east of the city of Chania, offers one of the safest natural ports in the Mediterranean, whose strategic importance has been recognized since antiquity. In Byzantine times there is not much information about the port of Souda and during the 9th century, Crete was attacked by Arabs. In the first centuries of Venetian rule, the port of Souda belonged to the district of Chania and its importance has declined. In the 13th century, the only fortified site in the area built by the Venetians is located on the hill east of the village of Kalyves, called Castel Apicorno. The value of the port was re-evaluated in the 15th and 16th centuries, when Turkey took many of its colonies in the Eastern Mediterranean from Venice and Crete was directly threatened. So they decide on the defensive shield of the port with the fortification of the large rocky islet at its entrance called Fraronisi, from the Monastery of Agios Nikolaos that existed there at that time (the island of Frara or Flara, as the catholic monks are otherwise known). During the Turkish occupation, the port of Souda continued to offer its services to the Turks. It became a naval base, a permanent anchorage and a refueling station for the Muslim fleet. After the outbreak of the Greek revolution, the port became the epicenter of Turkish and Greek military operations.

L. Orsini started the construction of the fortress of the islet of Souda in 1572 and the works were completed in 1583. The wall surrounded the entire surface of the island. It had 44 cannons and was reinforced with 4 bastions Martinego and Michiel, between which a passage led to the Mocenigo bastion and the lower part of the island, where the cemetery and a reservoir were located. On the southwest side was the main entrance to the fortress and the Orsino bastion, while on the south end there was another polygonal bastion (mezingo linguetta). A special jetty was also built for the mooring of Venetian ships. Inside the castle, accommodation was built for the soldiers, ammunition depots, residence of the Prophet and the Military Commander, a cathedral (duomo), two churches and tanks. The island was named by the Venetians “Eye of the Kingdom”. A short distance from the islet of Souda, there is another islet. The complex of islands in antiquity was called Lefkai. The name “Lefkai” (according to the legend), was given when the Sirens were defeated in a music competition by the Muses, and they took off their wings, turned white and fell into the sea, forming the two islands at the entrance of the Gulf of Souda. In other words, the “White Islands” emerged. The Venetians named the smaller island “Rabbit Island” (Scoglio de Conigli) and the larger Souda. On the smaller island, a small fort was built to better protect the fortress of Souda, while in the place Podomouri was created Porporela – a kind of artificial pier – which made that part of the bay difficult for ships, as it forced them to sail near the fortress and be vulnerable to its fires. In 1669, Venice, exhausted by its many years of struggle against the Turks, was forced to surrender on the condition of maintaining its three naval fortresses in Crete: Souda, Gramvousa and Spinalonga, hoping for the recapture of Crete one day. The three forts remained in the possession of Venice for another half a century. During the last Venetian-Turkish war, the fortress of Souda resisted a 72-day siege and surrendered on 27 September 1715.

The fortress of Ijedin was built in 1872 by Reuf Pasha, in the same place where in 1646 the first Turks, expelling the Venetians, built a Tower. It was the main defense project of the port and was named in honor of the eldest son of Sultan Abdul Aziz Itzedin. Itzedin building is not ordinary. Its stones have been standing cold and unshakable for centuries now. Apart from the glorious pages of history written by the civil activists who were imprisoned there, the scammer counts his life centuries ago. Prisons were for heavy convicts of common criminal law. This was evident from the dark cells of solitary confinement, where many convicted prisoners were chained to one leg with a thick chain tied to the end by an iron bullet that prevented them from moving freely and escaping. Around the prison there were and still are small distances from each other watchtowers, who as it is said every hour shouted “guards hurry up!”, To stay awake. The architecture and the history of the building alone, is capable of being characterized and utilized as a monument. In fact, this building has inspired the world of art, since as we were informed, this was chosen by Pantelis Voulgaris to shoot scenes from his film “The Stone Age”. At the beginning of his political career, Eleftherios Venizelos was held there for a few days. During the dictatorship of Pangalos (1924), a large number of political prisoners were held in Ijedin, while after the fall of the dictatorship, Pangalos himself was imprisoned there. During the occupation and the first years of the civil war, the prisons were closed due to the intense activity of the Democratic Army in the prefecture. The Germans operated the prisons of Agia (which still operate today), in which conditions were very harsh.

The British Allied Cemetery is located in the NW corner of Souda Bay, at Vlite, 5 km east of Chania in a beautiful area by the sea. In this cemetery are buried the allies of Greece during the Second World War (British, Australians, New Zealanders) who were killed during the Battle of Crete, in May 1941. The land where the allies were buried was ceded by Greece and became the last resting place of the dead. Their remains were collected from four key “British military cemeteries” set up by the German occupation forces during the war. There are 1,527 burials and most of them are British, but there are also Australian and New Zealand ones. In addition to the tombs, there are monuments with the names of men we know who were buried in certain groups of tombs, but whose actual tombs within these groups can not be specifically defined. These monuments bear the inscriptions “Buried near this point” and “Believed to be”. This problem arose because the German forces that had taken on the task of transporting the corpses from the battlefield to the four burial sites that had been designated, often lost the military identities of the dead. The cemetery is maintained by the War Cemetery Committee. There are hundreds of white slabs on the ground and the space looks like a huge garden of peace. The central point of the cemetery is occupied – as in the other allied cemeteries of Europe – by the Cross of Sacrifice. The cemetery also houses the tomb of J. Pendlebury (10E), a great archaeologist who worked for the British Counterintelligence and was executed by the Germans in 1941. There is also the tomb of a German soldier, Alfred Hamann. He was buried in the Souda cemetery, due to a mistake. His remains were discovered near Maleme in 1956, during construction work in the area. His military ID was removed from his body and his remains were buried in a garden in Maleme. In 1960, his remains were found again by the Volksbund Recovery Service. The only thing found on him was his watch, which was made in England. For this reason, they believed that he was a British soldier and so his remains were handed over to the British War Graves Commission and transported to the allied cemetery in Souda. It became known much later that this was the German soldier Alfed Hamann, who was born on March 12, 1918 in the Berlin area and died on May 20, 1941, the first day of the Battle of Crete. Following an agreement between the Volksbund and the Commonwealth Committee, it was decided not to relocate his remains, but to keep them in Souda. The architect was Louis De Soissons.

Chania Craft Park, 73200 Souda – Chania – Crete tel. 2821081261-80118-81410
Verekynthos: The mountain where the Idea Daktyli, sons of Zeus and patrons of the arts, lived and worshiped. They came here and taught the ancient arts to the people (Metallurgy, ceramics, glassmaking, Textile). Continuing the tradition, the artistic village “Verekynthos” was created, with the main goal of highlighting the arts that were always intertwined with the life and culture of the Cretan people. The artistic village is located between Souda and Tsikalaria, at the eastern entrance of Chania. At this point, there were older tsikalia production workshops, giving the village its appropriate name. Objects that testify to the tradition of the village in the construction of ceramics and other works, are two old kilns, in which the potters baked their ceramics with wood. Today, in the same place there are workshops for ceramics, sculpture, silversmithing, glassmaking, leather goods and weaving, as well as workshops for the processing of semi-precious stones. All items are handmade and made in the artistic village by the craftsmen themselves, continuing the great tradition of the area in handicrafts. Handicrafts, a productive industry with an important history and many prospects, have been an attraction for many young craftsmen in recent years. The artistic village of Verekynthos is a work of vital importance for Chania. It gives new opportunities to professionals and amateurs in the industry, and a solution in sensitive areas such as housing, organization and promotion of activities. In the Art Village of Verekynthos, there are sixteen pottery workshops, six silver and gold workshops, and six leather workshops.