Kastro (Castle)

Above the Old Town is Chora’s citadel, built by the Venetian Duke of the Archipelago Marco II Sanudo in the 13th century.

Still partly guarded by Medieval walls, the Kastro is a peaceful maze of little flowery squares linked by narrow alleys that have monasteries, churches and noble mansions, some still bearing their coats of arms.

If you enter the Kastro via the northern Trani Porta gate you can see the official measure for merchants selling fabrics, etched into a marble pilaster.

Greece’s greatest modern writer, Nikos Kazantzakis, studied for a year at the School of Commerce in the Kastro, which has since become the Naxos Archaeological Museum.

In the southern part of the Kastro is a terrace with a cafe, accessed via an elevator and with a dreamy view of Chora’s sea of white houses, the inland hills of Naxos and the sea.