Vranokastro

Vranokastro began life in the fourth century BC as a Macedonian fortification, raised specifically to guard the gold mines of the region. Once the ore gave out, the place slid into obscurity, and under the Romans it rated as little more than a minor military outpost. Its ancient Macedonian pedigree earned it the old name of the castle of Alexander the Great, but in the twelfth century it was taken in hand by the Byzantine general Alexios Vranas, whose name it now carries. He reactivated it in 1185, when the Byzantines, worried by Serbian raids, pressed abandoned strongholds in East Macedonia back into service. The castle held on until 1383, when the advancing Turks stormed and destroyed it; local tradition insists the final siege lasted forty years. Today the condition is not good, with little beyond the shell of the fortification surviving to mark its long, uneven career.

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