The Venetian fortress of Frangokastello (originally Franco castello in Italian), meaning a ´free castle´, was built in 1371. The lofty fortress with a square ground plan with four defence towers stands on the flat coast and it belongs to the oldest Venetian fortified complexes. It served as a point of defence against pirate raids as well as a bastion to protect against the raids of Cretan partisans mainly from Hora Sfafion. In May 1828, a famous battle took place there, in which all the Sfakion fighters were killed by the Turkish majority and buried in the sand under the ramparts. According to an old legend, the souls of the fallen ones appear around the fortress every year on the day of the battle aniversary (yet the general conviction is that this is only the mirroring of the air above the Libyan Sea reflecting on the ground in certain weather conditions - mainly in the morning hours during May).