The acropolis
Castle of Vonitsa. Entrance's gate
During the Ottoman period, the main enclosure was packed with buildings, but only a few scattered structures survive today. The largest and most impressive is the ruined and roofless two-storey barrack block on the highest point of the hill. A church used to be here, but it was already ruined in the early 19th century, when the Englishman William Leake visited Vonitsa. The Ottomans appear to have converted the ruined church into their barracks. They also erected a circuit wall, two or three meters tall, that probably served as a gun battery commanding the entire castle. The acropolis may have been fortified by Ali Pasha of Ioannina after 1806, when he occupied Vonitsa.
As seen on
Vonitsa: the castle of eight masters