Castle of Skyros

The Castle of Skyros crowns a 179-metre rock above the island's main town, a perch with a long and layered past. Myth places the palace of King Lycomedes here, the man who killed Theseus, and it was on this rock that Achilles supposedly hid in women's clothing to dodge the Trojan War. In 475 BC the Athenian general Kimon drove out the pirate Dolopes, found what he claimed were Theseus's bones, and carried them back to Athens. The rock later hosted the Episcopal Church of the Dormition, founded around 895 AD, and the Monastery of Agios Georgios, first documented in 1289 when it was granted to Agia Lavra on Athos. The castle's fortifications took their final shape under Niccolò III dalle Carceri, Duke of Naxos, in the 1370s. Venetians, Byzantines, Ottomans and pirates all swept through in turn, and for centuries the islanders kept second homes within the walls as refuge. The monastery was rebuilt in 1599-1602, but the castle itself survives in poor condition, partially restored at best.