Castle of Chios

Chios Castle extends north of the city center. Entry is via the main gate (Porta Maggiore), built by the Venetians in 1694, and the now-ruined “Upper Gate” (Portello) on the NW side. The walls are divided into land and sea fronts, forming an irregular pentagon with strong bastions at intervals (eight survive today). In the towers of three of them are embedded plaques with the Giustiniani emblem. In 1329 the castle remained in Byzantine hands until 1346, when Chios passed to the Republic of Genoa. In medieval times, the city’s castle was the center of Chios’s political and military administration. In 1566 Piali Pasha took the castle without a fight for the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. In 1694 the Venetians captured it. Thereafter it remained under the Ottomans until 1912, when Chios was liberated and annexed to the Greek state.