Saranta Kolones Castle Ruins, Paphos, Cyprus

Saranta Kolones ('Forty Columns castle') is a ruined medieval fortress inside the Paphos Archaeological Park. It takes its name from the large number of granite columns that were found on the site and probably once formed part of the ancient agora. The Byzantine castle is believed to have been built at the end of the 7th century AD to protect the port and the city of Nea Pafos from Arab raids. It was later remodeled by the Lusignans in the early 1200s.

The fortress had a three-metre thick wall with four huge corner towers and another four intermediary towers along the joining walls and moat surrounding the castle. Access was across a wooden bridge spanning the moat. The square courtyard measured 35 metres long by 35 metres wide, with a tower at each corner. The main entrance was through a fifth, horseshoe-shaped tower on the east side. Destroyed by an earthquake in 1222, the castle was subsequently abandoned.

References:

Wikipedia

User Reviews

Robert Sar (20 months ago)
Impressive. A lot to see - prepare for at least 2-3 hours to see most of Ancient Paphos

R Sheward (21 months ago)
Give yourself time! Need at least 2 hrs to explore , read information and take photos etc. Excellent site. We ran out of time and it got dark.

MonikaPuziarska (2 years ago)
Good place , when we went October 2018 , the entry was €4.50. There is plenty to see , there are barriers so you don’t step on the important pieces of history. There are great history parts to see, me and my partner prefer the tombs of the Kings €2.50 as it was more interesting and adventurous for us . But it is worth seeing both places. You do have to go through entrance at archeological park to get to the forty columns fortress and it is located up the stairs and towards right 3 mins walk as the area is so big . There are other thing to see whilst there . I would suggest wearing trainers due to uneven ground and rocks.

Maher Jebara (2 years ago)
It was a decent place to visit. Not as impressive as I had originally thought. But still something to check out and won’t take too much time.

Lisa Drew (2 years ago)
We so loved it here. So fasinating the castle was with all the tunnels . Absouluty worth a visit or 2.

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