Palamidi

Palamidi is the castle of Nafplio. It is constructed by Venetians at 1687. The castle has totally eight bastions and everyone of these are separate from other seven. The central bastion and the best equipped is St. Andrea's. For that reason was the garisson headquarters. In that bastion there is a small church, dedicated to St. Gerard. Except the bastion of St. Andrew, the Venetians built bastions "Leonidas" and "Miltiadis" Northely, the bastion "Romper" northwest, "Themistocles" southerly and "Achilles" easterly. The bastion "Epaminondas" completed during the Ottoman occupation, although then it was built "Fokion" bastion.

 

Town liberation from Ottomans, started from Palamidi after many years siege. The night of November 29th 1822, a group of 300 Greeks captures the castle suddenly with surprise attack. Leaders of that battle was Staikos Staikopoulos and Dimitrios Moschonisiotis. The second one was the first person that entered the castle from "Achilles" bastion. The next day Greeks cleaned the church and they commited doxology, since then the church dedicated to St. Andrew who celebrates the day which the town became greek.

 

Palamidi except its use as fortress, it has been used as prison place too. The prisons built at 1840 in the bastion "Miltiades" and they worked till 1926. During the Regency there was imprisoned Theodoros Kolokotronis with fake accusation of high treason.

 

The access to the castle can be done with two ways. The first one is by car via the road that ends out of the east gate of the castle.

The second one is from the famous staircase which is on the west side of the castle and the myth wants to have 999 steps, as thousandth stair has been broken by Kolokotroni's horse. But in reality the staircase was not there during the period of the Greek revolution. It built later during the reign of Otto from convicts who were imprisoned in Palamidi under the supervision of the Bavarian army.