The Water Castle Bourtzi in the middle of the harbor of Nafplio, eastern Peloponnese, will open to the public as an accessible monument of culture and recreation from Saturday, August 5, 2023 the culture Ministry and the Hellenic Public Properties Co, announced on Thursday.
Admission will free of charge until August 17, and from Friday, August 18, visitors will be required to buy a ticket.
The monument underwent extensive restoration and maintenance to all the authentic parts of the fortress, the Culture Ministry said in a press release.
Bourtzi will be open to visitors every day from Monday to Sunday, from 09:00 until 20:00.
Video: Drone by Konstantinos Mparkoytsis
The island fortress of Bourtzi is a Venetian castle located in the middle of the harbour of Nafplio. It was built by Antonio Gambello, an architect from Bergamo in 1471 on the islet of Agio Theodoros.
Its construction was completed by the engineer Brancaleone in 1473.
The design was made specifically to fit the narrow shape of the islet and at first it was used as a small castle where an executioner lived and put prisoners to death.
The name of Bourtzi (Greek: Μπούρτζι) comes from Ottoman Turkish برج – burc meaning “tower”; it was formerly called Καστέλι, Kasteli is the Greek word for Bourtzi’s original Italian name Castello dello Soglio.
And if you have heard people refer to Nafplio as “the Port of the Chain” (Porto Cadena), it is because there really was a mobile chain that started from Akronafplia and reached Bourtzi, whose purpose was to protect the port and the city from sea raiders.
Over the years, the castle was used also as prion and it was the first prison of Theodoros Kolokotronis, (1770 – 1843) the general and the pre-eminent leader of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) against the Ottoman Empire.
The Greek government was housed in the water castle twice, the executioners of Palamidi also lived there.
In the 1930s it functioned as a center of the Tourism Organization and between 1960-1970 as a luxury hotel and restaurant.
It is now a famous tourist attraction in the city of Nafplio and the refurbishment included improvements in access for people with disabilities.
interesting further note on the etymology of ‘bourtzi’.. yes, in ottoman turkish the word means ‘castle’ of ‘fort’.. but they got the word from the arabic ‘burj’ = tower,fort , which is borrowed back from.. the greek ‘pyrgos’ which is also tower, and cognate with the germanic ‘burg’ = tower, fortification, fortified town (e.g. strasbourg, st petersburg, fribourg, etc)
Its real name is “Castel del Scoglio” or “Castel dà Mar”, not “Bourdzi”. Venetian dialect differs from today’s Italian language. And it was never called “Castelli” by the Venetians, nor by the local Greek/Italian community. It’s a Venetian fort, built at the end of the 15h century by engineer Antonio Gambello of Bergamo, under the leadership of Podestà Vettore Pasqualigo, to defend Napoli di Romania (Nauplia) from sea attacks.