16 historic sites
Castles in Greece
The birthplace of Western civilization, Greece's fortresses span 3,000 years — from the Mycenaean citadels of the Bronze Age to the Byzantine towers, the Crusader castles of the Dodecanese and the Ottoman fortifications of the Aegean coast. Rhodes alone contains one of the world's best-preserved medieval walled cities, still encircled by the 4-kilometre walls built by the Knights Hospitaller.
greece · South Aegean
Palace of the Grand Master
The Gothic fortress-palace of the Knights of Rhodes — the most complete Crusader castle in the eastern Mediterranean
greece · Elounda, Lasithi, Crete, Greece
Spinalonga Island Fortress
A Venetian island fortress turned leper colony — the last inhabited leprosarium in Europe, set on Crete's Gulf of Elounda, made internationally famous by Victoria Hislop's novel The Island
greece · South Aegean, Rhodes
Lindos Acropolis & Castle of the Knights
A dazzling acropolis of ancient temples and crusader walls above the Aegean
greece · Rethymno, Crete, Greece
Fortezza of Rethymno
One of the largest Venetian fortresses ever built — the 16th-century bastion above Rethymno's old town that the Venetians built after Ottoman raiders burned the city, and the Ottomans took anyway
greece · Cyclades — Naxos island, Kastro district of Naxos Town (Chora)
Naxos Castle
A living Venetian kastro above the Cyclades, founded in 1207 by Marco Sanudo — Naxos's 13th-century fortified hilltop looks down on the ancient Portara below.
greece · Corfu Town, Ionian Islands
Old Fortress of Corfu
The Venetian sea fortress guarding Corfu Town — 1,000 years of Byzantine, Venetian and British layers
greece · Peloponnese
Palamidi Fortress
A Venetian fortress above Nafplio reached by 999 steps — with the Peloponnese at your feet
greece · Central Macedonia — Thessaloniki, waterfront promenade (Leoforos Nikis)
White Tower of Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki's defining symbol on the Aegean waterfront — the Ottoman 'Tower of Blood' that was whitewashed into a city icon, where six floors of Byzantine and Ottoman history give way to a rooftop panorama over the Thermaic Gulf
greece · Peloponnese, Laconia, 8km west of modern Sparta
Mystras
The last Byzantine capital in Greece — a hillside ghost city abandoned since the 1830s, where the frescoes painted before Constantinople fell are still on the walls
greece · Corinthia / Peloponnese
Acrocorinth
One of the most impressive fortified sites in Europe — 575 metres of layered history above the Isthmus of Corinth
greece · Kavala, Eastern Macedonia & Thrace, Greece
Kavala Fortress
The hilltop Byzantine-Ottoman fortress above Kavala's harbour — birthplace of Mohammed Ali, founder of modern Egypt, and gateway to the oldest tobacco port in northern Greece
greece · Messenia / Peloponnese
Methoni Castle
Venice's gateway to the East — a sea fortress at the tip of the Peloponnese with an octagonal tower rising from the sea
greece · Central Macedonia (Pieria), foot of Mount Olympus
Platamon Castle
The Crusader fortress guarding the gateway between Macedonia and southern Greece, with Mount Olympus as its backdrop and the Aegean at its feet
greece · Ionian Islands, Corfu — northwest coast, near Paleokastritsa
Angelokastro
The fortress that held Corfu's western frontier for a thousand years — three Ottoman sieges, never captured
greece · Messenia, Peloponnese — Koroni, Messenian Gulf
Koroni Castle
Venice called it and Methoni 'the eyes of the Republic' — Koroni still has its eyes open, with a living monastery inside the walls and tower-houses where Venetian naval power once organized the galley route to the Levant
greece · Western Greece
Chlemoutsi Castle
The best-preserved Frankish castle in Greece — built by crusader knights in 1220 and home to the only museum in the country dedicated to the forgotten centuries of Frankish rule over the medieval Peloponnese