The strategic importance of Preveza was obvious to Ali Pasha, so he embarked on an ambitious fortification programme. Countless workers arrived from all over his territories, including distant towns like Katerini and Ipati; they are not necessarily willing arrivals since many are forcefully brought here to work for a piece of (stale) bread. During the fourteen years that Ali controls Preveza he builds a string of fortresses that encircle the town, improves older forts and erects two new, the fortress of Pantokrator and the fortress of Saint George. He also built a large wooden palace on the ruins of the fortress of Bouka. Ten years later, this palace was burned to the ground by his son Veli, before he surrendered the town to the Sultan; the area remains known to the present day as the “Old Palace” (Paliosaraga).