The aristocratic neighbourhood of Chalepa is within walking distance from the Venetian port. It is not a five-minute walk but rather a leisurely half an hour or so stroll along the coast. Chalepa is where the wealthiest Greek families moved to in the nineteenth century because the air was better and there was room to set their mansions within impressive grounds. This is also where the consulates of the foreign powers were located, as well as the residence of the governor-generals and high commissioners of Crete. Its importance as the diplomatic centre of Chania was memorialised by the Pact of Chalepa, a bilateral agreement between the Ottomans and the Cretans for a certain level of autonomy of the latter, signed on 15 October 1878, at a time when the city was the capital of the whole of Crete (1850-1898).