Platamon Castle

Platamon Castle stands on the site of the ancient city of Heraclia, at the foot of Mount Olympus, and dates from the middle Byzantine period of the tenth century. Its name first appears in an imperial order of 1198, though the fortress was likely already standing. After the Fourth Crusade took Constantinople in 1204, the castle passed to Boniface of Montferrat, who granted it to the Lombard knight Rolando Piska. Piska rebuilt it over the old ruined construction, and it soon returned to Byzantine hands. The despot of Epirus, Theodoros Aggelos, captured it in 1218, and after the Battle of Pelagonia in 1259 it fell to Michael Palaiologos of Nicaea, later Byzantine emperor. The Turks took the castle in 1385 and maintained it carefully, given its strategic value. The Venetians held it briefly from 1425 to 1427, but the Ottomans returned and stayed into the twentieth century. In April 1941, New Zealanders defending the castle were forced out by German bombardment. Its condition remains good.

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