Gates
The central gate of the castle is on the east side and is reinforced by two small towers, 7.5-8.0 metres high, which project outwards to reduce its open front. The towers control the entrance to the castle and contribute significantly to its defence and protection. The stretches of fortification wall on either side of the gate are strengthened by two large buttresses. For defensive reasons, entry to the interior of the castle was via three doorways. The outer gate leads to a paved, ascending, dog-leg passage with shallow steps, which passes through an intermediate gateway and terminates inside at an arched gate.
This system meant that any foe who succeeded in invading through the outer gate would be trapped in this intermediate space and thus an easy target for the defenders ranged on the internal battlements. In fortresses the central gate is essentially an opening in the walls, which allows communication both with those extra muros and those intra muros, which is why particular attention was paid to its construction and protection. It was common practice, even in antiquity, to protect each side of it with a tower and to reinforce it with successive gates. The Venetian domination of the castle during the past is attested by a marble plaque with representation of a lion, emblem of Venice, incorporated in the wall above the central gate.
Later, under Byzantine rule, another marble plaque with the characteristic monogram of the Palaiologan emperors, together with the initials of the Byzantine governor Theodoros Palaiologos, was incorporated in the wall opposite the gate (it remained in this position until 1982). Built into the lower part of the buttress to the right of the gate are two earlier architectural members (spolia), one of marble and one of sandstone, which carry inscriptions (visible on the marble spolium are the letters Ο Ε Ν Υ Π Ε Ρ Ω Ι Ε Μ Ι, with the rest illegible).
The north postern gate
On the north side of the castle (the area used to be called Mavrohani), on the side of the Romeikos Gialos and close to the shore, is a smaller postern gate, which is built between the rocks so that it is not easily visible from the sea. Its construction resembles that of the central gate, with access to the inside of the castle via a dog-leg passage that is protected from above by the battlements of a bastion and arrow slits/loopholes. The postern gate is also protected by a tower, at the junction of the east and north inner fortification wall. This secondary gateway obviously served as a sally port for clandestine departure or even surprise attack on the enemy in the case of siege, but also for delivering supplies, which were unloaded directly from ships into the interior of the kastro.
The west postern gate
The north section of the west fortification wall included in its original construction a third gateway, the threshold of which is preserved (in situ). Later, however, this postern gate was sealed by the chemin de ronde, which was constructed to reinforce the enceinte.
The castle doors – none of which has survived – were double-leafed, of very durable timber and with iron cladding. The English traveller Henry Fanhawe Tozer, who visited the castle in 1889, remarked that the main access was protected by three gates and that the two outer ones of these were covered with rusted iron plates.
