Kritinia Castle

This guide to Kritinia Castle in Rhodes starts with two weathered coats of arms above a broken gateway, and the villagers of Kritinia who abandoned their seaside homes at Kamiros Skala after pirate raids grew too frequent. You'll hear how the Knights of Saint John raised a three-part fortress here under Grand Master Giovanni Battista Orsini around 1472, why a second Grand Master's crest was added decades later, and what happened when Ottoman forces landed on Rhodes in 1480. It ends at a small chapel to Saint John still holding traces of sixteenth-century paint.