New Navarino Fortress

New Navarino Fortress, or Niokastro, stands inside the modern town of Pylos, the younger counterpart to the older Palaiokastro on the nearby headland. The Ottomans raised it in 1573, and its history since has been a brisk relay of occupiers. The Venetians took it in 1686, lost it back to the Turks in 1715, and then Greek fighters seized it in the first months of the 1821 revolution. Ibrahim Pasha reclaimed it in 1825, until the French general Maison liberated it in 1828. From 1830 it served as a prison, and during the Second World War as a headquarters for first Italian, then German forces.

The fortress splits into two parts. The larger lower enceinte climbs the hillside in ashlar limestone, while the upper castle is a hexagonal stronghold with heavy battlements and projecting bastions guarding five of its six corners. Within stand the cross-in-square Church of the Metamorphosis, once a mosque, and the two-storeyed stone building raised for General Maison, now reconstructed as the museum and offices.

Heritage data from Wikidata, compiled and verified in the Atika atlas.