FRANGOKASTELLO lies 14km east of Hora Sfakion, about 3km south of the main road, which heads east towards Plakias. A series of isolated dwellings dotted across a plain between the mountains and the Libyan sea, it's a curious place to arrive in as there's no real centre or square as such, leaving you with little option but to head for the castle, the imposing silhouette of which comes into view long before anything else. Despite its lack of a focus, for peace­ful lassitude the beach at Frangokastello is still among the best spots in Crete, with fine sand, crystal-clear water (with good snorkelling opportunities) and very little effort required either to get here or to find food and drink once you've arrived.

Once on Frangokastello beach, if you want company you'll find it around the castle where the best part of the sand is, sheltered and slowly shelving; for solitude head west­wards along the shoreline - less soft sand and more wind, but still very pleasant. There are beaches to the east too: follow the coastal path for ten to fifteen minutes and you'll arrive at the top of a low cliff overlooking perhaps a kilometre of beau­tiful, deserted sand and rocks. Lying in the sun here the only thing to disturb the afternoon tranquillity is the occasional muffled Grump of an explosion offshore, emanating from the home-made depth charges of local fishermen going about their business in the time-honoured and highly illegal way. Watch closely, and you'll see the sudden spout of water near the boat before the noise of the explo­sion reaches you.

Frangokastello castle, so impressively four-square from a distance, turns out close up to be a mere shell.
Nothing but the bare walls survive, with a tower in each corner, and over the seaward entrance an escutcheon, which can just be made out as the Venetian lion of St Mark, but, it's still some shell. Frangokastello fortress was originally built in 1371 to deter pirates and in an attempt to impose some order on Sfakia: a garri­son was maintained here throughout the Venetian and Turkish occupations, con­trolling the plain as surely as it failed to tame the mountains (even today, the orange-pink walls look puny when you see them with the grey bulk of the moun­tains towering behind).

In 1828, Frangokastello was occupied by Hadzimichali Daliani, a Greek adventurer attempting to spread the War of Independence from the mainland to Crete. Instead of taking to the hills as all sensible rebels before and since have done, he and his tiny force attempted to make a stand in the castle. Predictably, they were massacred and their martyrdom became the fuel for yet more heroic legends of the pallikkri. Locals will claim that to this day, on or around May 17, the ghosts of Daliani and his army march from the castle: they are known as dhrossoulites, or dewy ones, because they appear in the mists around dawn. Just below the castle, before the beach, there's a patch of greenery which shades a taverna, Fata Morgana, and a tiny freshwater creek with thoroughly incongruous ducks on it: between the road and sea to the west are more little streams and marshy patches like this, home to terrapins and some type of water snake or eel.