Palamidi

The great Venetian fortress above Nafplio, begun in 1714 and finished in barely three years, a chain of eight self-contained bastions along a ridge so that the loss of one would not mean the loss of the rest. The Ottomans took it within a year of its completion anyway. A staircase of many hundreds of steps climbs from the town, and the count is disputed by everyone who has done it. One bastion later served as a prison, holding among others the War of Independence hero Theodoros Kolokotronis.