Venetian Villa,Etia in Handras.Archaeological Sites in eastern Crete.Holidays, accommodation in east Crete

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ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES of Eastern Crete

ETIA (Venetian Mansion)

Etia is a small settlement situated in the Municipality of Lefki. It's 2 kms far from the village of Papagianades driving to the village of Armeni. In a Venetian census was recorded with a population of 564.

The village of Etia was at peak of its power around the Venetian occupation and from the presence of the St. John and St. Aikaterini churches one assumes that the village also existed through the Byzantine period as well.

The village used to be private property of the De Mezzo family, a venetian family, where they built their three-storeyed house, the Seragio Serai House, which used to host Turkish officers as well during the Turkish occupation and can be seen nowadays. This House is considered to be one of the most important samples of the Venetian architecture in Crete. The church of St. Aikaterini used to be occupied by the Turks as a mosque until the Cretan revolution in 1897.

At the south of village of Etia there is the hill of Etiani Kefala at an altitude of 715 m. where it used to be a sacred place but unfortunately nowadays looted.

From the book "Sitia", N.Papadakis, Archaeologist,1983.


The stone inscription of 1750 inside the fountain-house out of the mansion	The main road to the uninhabited village of Etia	The houses in Etia have been built with a nicer architecture than the other classic cretan houses because of the Venetian influence	View from the second floor of the mansion to the south-west.The mansion used to have three floors. Nowadays only the ground floor and a small part of the second one stand.


The part of the 2nd floor that still stands	The door on the left guides to the 2nd floor of the mansion	Can you guess that 600 people used to live in this village?	As the mansion has been declared as a national monument, significant work of restoration has taken place.