Koroni Castle 🏰 main gate

Free entrance to this only still inhabited, most significant preserved Venetian castle in Greece

Koroni (Greek: Κορώνη) is a small town in southeastern Messinia in Greece and since 2011 a municipal district of the municipality Pylos-Nestor. Koroni was the administrative center of the municipality of the same name from 1997 to the end of 2010.

History: The ancient city of Koroni, or then called Korone, was probably founded in 369 BC in connection with the liberation of Messinia from Sparta. It was located near the present-day town of Petalidi. There are still remains of walls from Roman times and the old harbor mole under water. The Roman travel writer Pausanias reports from ancient Korone. The city, which was a bishop's seat from the 4th century, was abandoned in the 9th century and moved to its current location, where the ancient city of Asine already stood. The remains of an Apollo temple from this period still exist, which was converted into a Byzantine basilica and on whose site the church of Agia Sophia now stands.
In the 6th to 7th centuries, a castle was built on the ruins of the city, which has been used without interruption to this day. The castle extends over the strategically favorable headland at the entrance to the Gulf of Messinia and was naturally protected on three sides by its cliffs sloping steeply into the sea.Agia Sofia.