
Martinengo Bastion
Largest of seven Venetian bastions crowning the old city walls, now home to a writer's plain grave and sweeping views.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Martinengo Bastion in Heraklion follows the funeral of Nikos Kazantzakis, the writer behind Zorba the Greek, whose novels pushed him to the edge of excommunication and left the Orthodox Church unwilling to grant him a normal grave. It traces his death from leukemia in Germany in 1957 and the procession of thousands of Cretans who carried his coffin up onto the largest of the city's seven Venetian bastions. Listen for what this fortress endured long before it became his resting place.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Venetian Walls of Heraklion
Renaissance-era ramparts encircling the old town, crowned by a bastion overlooking a writer's grave.
Venetian Fortress of Koules
Squat Venetian sea fortress with walls nearly nine meters thick, guarding a harbor entrance since the fifteen forties.
Nikos Kazantzakis Museum
Ancestral village house turned literary shrine, filled with a writer's manuscripts, letters and personal archive.
Jesus Gate (Kainourgia Porta)
Renaissance fortress gate with a plain outer face and a richly carved inner facade by Michele Sanmicheli.
Pantokrator Venetian Portal
Venetian fortress gate carved with the Lion of Saint Mark and a medallion of Christ the Almighty.
Heraklion Venetian Port
Sea fortress guarding a Venetian harbor, built on sunken ships and armed against a twenty-one-year siege.