PLATAMONAS CASTLE

This medieval castle (Κάστρο Πλαταμώνα/Kastro Platamona) offers grandiose views: it sits on a hill overlooking the Thermaic Gulf with Mount Olympus in the background. In July and August, it is the setting for the Olympus Festival (theater and music), which also takes place at the archaeological site of Dion. Often presented as "Byzantine", the present castle was in fact erected between 1204 and 1222 under the orders of the Lombard lord Rolando Piscia, vassal of the Piedmontese king of Thessalonica Boniface de Montferrat, during the brief Frankish occupation of Macedonia. The castle takes elements from a ^10th-century Byzantine fortress, itself built on the site of the ancient city of Heraclea. It was retaken by the Byzantines in 1244, then passed into Venetian hands in 1425, before being sold to the Ottomans in 1427, shortly before the capture of Thessalonica in 1430. The Gothic-style main gate opens onto a vast courtyard surrounded by crenellated ramparts over 500 m long. Inside, the 20 m-high octagonal keep, erected by the Venetians in the ^15th century, guards the entrance to an inner wall and overlooks the small church of Agia Paraskevi, a former Ottoman mosque. The castle suffered extensive damage during the Greek-Turkish war of 1897, and was bombed by the Germans in 1941, when New Zealand troops were entrenched there. During your visit, you'll see the remains of medieval frescoes, Ottoman cannons, turtles... and even snakes in summer!