Kastritsi Fortress

En un regard

Le château en bref

On the small Cape Saint George, at the northern end of the Bay of Varna, the ruins of Kastritsi form one of the best-preserved medieval towns in Bulgaria. A Byzantine fortress dating from the 5th and 6th centuries, rebuilt by the Second Bulgarian Empire in the 13th century, it became a busy port trading with Genoa and Venice, before being sacked by the crusaders of Ladislaus III in November 1444 and then abandoned. A wall two hundred metres long, reinforced by five towers and a keep, bars the cape; behind it, paved streets serve some hundred houses whose walls still stand up to two metres high. The site owes its exceptional preservation to its location within the grounds of the Euxinograd residence, which has been closed since the late 19th century. Excavated every summer by the Varna Museum, it is only partially open to the public.