Castles and fortifications in Greece
Parthenon
The Parthenon is a former temple, on the Athenian Acropolis, dedicated to the goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their patron. Construction began in 447 BC when the Athenian Empire was at the peak of its power. It was completed in 438 BC although decoration of the building continued until 432 BC. It is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, generally considered the zenit ...
Founded: 447 BC |
Location:
Athens, Greece
White Tower of Thessaloniki
The White Tower is a monument and museum on the waterfront of the city of Thessaloniki. The present tower replaced an old Byzantine fortification, known to have been mentioned around the 12th century, that the Ottoman Empire reconstructed to fortify the city's harbour sometime after Sultan Murad II captured Thessaloniki in 1430. The tower became a notorious prison and scene of mass executions during the period of Ottoman ...
Founded: 12th century |
Location:
Thessaloniki, Greece
Old Fortress of Corfu
The Old Venetian Fortress of Corfu covers the promontory which initially contained the old town of Corfu that had emerged during Byzantine times. Before the Venetian era the promontory, which lies between the Gulf of Kerkyra to the north and Garitsa Bay to the south, was defended by Byzantine fortifications which the Venetians largely replaced with fortifications of their own design. As part of their defensive plans the ...
Founded: 15th century |
Location:
Corfu, Greece
Koules Fortress
The 'Castello a Mare' is a fortress located at the entrance of the old port of Heraklion, Crete. It was built by the Republic of Venice in the early 16th century, and is still in good condition today. The site of Castello a Mare was possibly first fortified by the Arabs in the 9th or 10th centuries. By the Byzantine period, a tower known as Castellum Comunis stood on the site. In 1303, the tower was des ...
Founded: 1462 |
Location:
Heraklion, Greece
Spinalonga Fortress
Spinalonga is a barren, arid rocky islet lying in the mouth of the natural harbour of Elounda. The islet was fortified in antiquity, to protect the ancient city of Olous. Towards the end of the 16th century, the Venetians, as part of their great fortification works to defend Crete, built on Spinalonga one of the most important bastion-type seaward fortresses of the Mediterranean. At strategic points in the fortifications ...
Founded: 16th century |
Location:
Agios Nikolaos, Greece
Rethymno Fortress
The Fortezza (fortress) is the citadel of the city of Rethymno in Crete. It is built on a hill which was the site of ancient Rhithymna"s acropolis. Between the 10th and 13th centuries, the Byzantines established a fortified settlement to the east of the hill. It was called Castrum Rethemi, and it had square towers and two gates. The fortifications were repaired in the beginning of the 13th century. Ve ...
Founded: 1573-1580 |
Location:
Rethymno, Greece
New Fortress of Corfu
The New Fortress of Corfu is a Venetian fortress built on the hill of St. Mark in Corfu. The current buildings which exist within the fortress were built by the British during their rule of the island (1815–63). In the aftermath of the first great Ottoman siege of Corfu in 1537, the Venetians developed plans to expand the fortifications of the city. Venetians built the New Fortress at the hill of St. Mark to further st ...
Founded: 16th century |
Location:
Corfu, Greece
Heptapyrgion
The Heptapyrgion, also popularly known by its Ottoman Turkish name Yedi Kule, is a Byzantine and Ottoman-era fortress situated on the north-eastern corner of the Acropolis of Thessaloniki in Greece. Despite its name, which in both languages means 'Fortress of Seven Towers', it features ten, and was probably named after the Yedikule Fortress in Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey). Although the urban core of ...
Founded: 4th century AD |
Location:
Thessaloniki, Greece
St. Nicholas Fortress
The Mandraki was the military harbour and was guarded by a tower built between 1464 and 1467 by the Grand Master Zacosta at the end of the natural mole. After the siege of Rhodes in 1480 the Grand Master d"Aubusson added a bastion around the tower transforming it into a guard fortress on the sea. The castle was built at the place of an old Byzantine church dedicated to St. Nicholas, hence the name. Since the 17th ce ...
Founded: 1464 |
Location:
Rhodes, Greece
Walls of Thessaloniki
The Walls of Thessaloniki are the city walls surrounding the city during the Middle Ages and until the late 19th century. Large parts of the walls, including the entire seaward section, were demolished as part of the Ottoman authorities" restructuring of Thessaloniki"s urban fabric. The city was fortified from its establishment in the late 4th century BC, but the present walls date from the early Byzantine perio ...
Founded: 4th century AD |
Location:
Thessaloniki, Greece
Halki Castle
Halki Castle is located on the hill of St. Nicholas over the old village of Halki. It was built by the Knights of St. John in the 14th-15th century over the ancient Hellenistic citadel. From there they were able to control the sea routes, the harbor and the Trachean peninsula. Inside the castle are the ruins of the medieval church of St. Nicholas. At the gate the emblem of the Grand Master of the knights Pierre d’Aubuss ...
Founded: 14th century |
Location:
Halki, Greece
Kassiopi Castle
Kassiopi Castle was one of three Byzantine-period castles that defended the island before the Venetian era (1386–1797). The castles formed a defensive triangle, with Gardiki guarding the island"s south, Kassiopi the northeast and Angelokastro the northwest. The exact origins of the castle are not clear, with various theories being advanced, but they appear to be Byzantine. During excavations in the two towers adja ...
Founded: 6th century AD |
Location:
Corfu, Greece
Monolithos Castle
Outside the Monolithos village is the medieval castle, built on top of a 100m rock. It was built in 1480 by the Knights of Saint John to protect the island from attacks. In fact, this castle was never conquered. The Castle of Monolithos is widely ruined today but it offers great views of the sea and the two islets opposite to it. Inside the castle, there is a small working chapel dedicated to Agios Panteleimon (Saint Pant ...
Founded: 1480 |
Location:
Monolithos, Greece
Angelokastro
Angelokastro is a Byzantine castle on the island of Corfu. It is located at the top of the highest peak of the island"s shoreline in the northwest coast near Palaiokastritsa and built on particularly precipitous and rocky terrain. It stands 305 m on a steep cliff above the sea and surveys the City of Corfu and the mountains of mainland Greece to the southeast and a wide area of Corfu toward the northeast and northwes ...
Founded: 13th century |
Location:
Corfu, Greece
City Walls of Rhodes
The fortifications of the town of Rhodes are shaped like a defensive crescent around the medieval town and consist mostly in a modern fortification composed of a huge wall made of an embankment encased in stone, equipped with scarp, bastions, moat, counterscarp and glacis. The portion of fortifications facing the harbour is instead composed of a crenellated wall. On the moles towers and defensive forts are fou ...
Founded: 1309 |
Location:
Rhodes, Greece
Villehardouin's Castle
Mystras, the ‘wonder of the Morea’, developed down the hillside from the fortress built in 1249 by the prince of Achaia, William II of Villehardouin, at the top of a 620 m high hill overlooking Sparta. The Principality of Achaea was one of the three vassal states of the Latin Empire which replaced the Byzantine Empire after the capture of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. It became a vassal of the Kingdom o ...
Founded: 1249 |
Location:
Mystras, Greece
Kritinia Castle
The castle above Kritinia, named Kastellos, was built in 1472 by Giorgio Orsini to protect the inhabitants of the village from the attacks of the Ottoman fleets. Until the liberation of the Dodecanese, the village was named Kastelli, from the Latin Castellum, meaning castle.
Founded: 1472 |
Location:
Attavyros, Greece
Frangokastello Castle
Frangokastello castle was built by the Venetians in 1371-74 as a garrison to impose order on the rebellious Sfakia region, to deter pirates, and to protect Venetian nobles and their properties. The Venetians named it the Castle of St. Nikitas after the nearby church. The locals, however, who never saw it in a positive light, contemptuously dubbed it Frangokastello, meaning the Castle of the Franks (i.e. Catholic fo ...
Founded: 1371-1374 |
Location:
Sfakiá, Greece
Agios Georgios Castle
The Venetian Castle of Saint George in Kefalonia is located 7 km southeast of Argostoli, above the village Peratata. It has a polygonal shape and covers an area of 16,000 sq. m. This castle was originally built in the 12th century by the Byzantines but it was mostly the Venetians who gave it its present form. In fact, its external walls were built in 1504 by the Venetians. The castle is ruined today and only a few buildi ...
Founded: 12th century |
Location:
Kefalonia, Greece
Gramvousa Fortress
The fort at Imeri Gramvousa island was built between 1579 and 1584 during Venetian rule over Crete to defend the island from the Ottoman Turks. The fort remained in Venetian hands throughout the prolonged Cretan War, and in the treaty of 16 September 1669, which surrendered Crete to the Ottomans, Gramvousa, along with the fortresses of Souda and Spinalonga, was retained by Venice. These three forts defended Venetian ...
Founded: 1579-1584 |
Location:
Kíssamos, Greece