Agrilos

A small Turkish outpost, now reduced to rather poor remains, stands near the Agrilos lagoon, part of the Ambracian gulf, some 700 metres from the water. It was built after 1832, when the Treaty of Constantinople fixed the frontier between the newly independent Greek kingdom and the Ottoman Empire, and this fort was one of a line guarding that border. Its life was short: it remained in use for barely fifty years, until 1881, when the frontier shifted northwards and the entire chain of forts lost its purpose. What survives today is a modest trace of military architecture, a reminder of a tense, transitional period rather than a grand medieval stronghold. The site offers little in the way of dramatic ruins, but for those interested in the region's 19th-century politics, it holds a quiet, specific historical weight.