Kastelos Fort at Varipetro
Kastelos Hill is located 8 km west of the city of Chania and 1.5 km east of the village Varipetro of the province Kydonia, very close to the monastery of Transfiguration at Varypetro. It was a walled citadel (acropolis) at an altitude of 250m. The hill is considered to have been inhabited since the Minoan Era, to the medieval Times. The largest part of the walls date back to the Byzantine period and are preserved in all their length and almost all their height. At the south and west sides they complement the steep natural fortification, while in we see a double row of walls with bastions. At the lower part we still discern traces of the older fortifications.
Building traces are dispersed all over the citadel. The buildings were organized in clusters and many of them were carved into the rock. During the excavations, buildings of Hellenistic and Roman periods were identified, while near the monastery of Agia Kyriaki a part of a Late Archaic cemetery with burials in jars was revealed.
