Rio and Antirio on the map; within the yellow circles lie Makyneia (centre-left in the picture) and Nafpaktos (top right). (map © ROAD Publications)

Two kilometres of sea separated Peloponnese from Sterea Hellas until 2004 when a monumental work, Rio-Antirio Bridge (named “Charilaos Trikoupis” after the Greek Statesman), linked the two lands. Finally, a centuries old dream became a reality. The region is called “Minor Dardanelle” because of its resemblance to the famous passage connecting Europe and Asia and the castles that are at both ends of the passage. The two castles of Rio and Antirio built next to the sea, with a view towards the bridge, are reminiscent mostly of miniatures rather than castles at which repeated battles took place.


The history of the region and the castles

The straits of Rio - Antirio were mentioned during the descent of the Dorians in the 1^st millennium B.C. when a large group of those aggressive people built their ships at the shipyard before setting off to conquer the Peloponnese and spread in the hinterland, destroying Mycenaean civilisation and forcing the indigenous people to move elsewhere. The colony of the Korinthians named Molykrio was established in Antrio, the Rio of Molykrian area as it was called in antiquity (Thucydides, 2.86.1); fragments of the acropolis of the temple of Poseidon can be seen to this day at Ellinika area on an altitude of 500 m., south of the village Velvina.

Rio Achaec, as it was named in antiquity, is also mentioned by Pausanias who visited the area in the 2nd century A.D.; he gives no other information about the area even though it was widely known that the Temple of Poseidon lay where the castle is today. The castle was built by the Turks and in its northern walls ruins of the temple of Poseidon are inbuilt. Both castles (Rio and Antirio) were built in 1499, in only 3 months, by order of sultan Vayazit B; both these castles prevented the entry of hostile ships into the Corinthian gulf and it was exactly their location that made them the apple of discord between the Venetians and the Turks.

In 1532, the Genoese Admiral Andrea Doria, conquered the castles on behalf of the Christian nations of the West; hardly six months went by until the Turks re-conquered them. Seventy years later, in 1603, the knights of Malta caused great damage to the two castles, which, however, remained under Turkish rule. Eighty years later, in 1687, the Venetian Fransesco Morosini seized the castles and the Venetians became thus its rulers. In 1698, according to the Treaty of Karlowitz, Antirio was handed over to the Turks with the obligation of demolishing its walls. The Turks violated this condition and so, for the next 15 years, Rio belonged to the Venetians and Antirio to the Turks.

In 1715, when the Turks re-conquered most of the lands that once belonged to the Venetians, it took them only five days to take back the castle. A hundred and ten years later, in 1828, at the end of the Greek revolution, the French general Maison forced the Turks to hand over the castle of Rio to the Greeks, and, one year later, to offer the command of Antirio to the Greek authorities. In the years that followed, the castle of Rio functioned as a prison, while during the Second World War the German and Italian forces established their headquarters at the two castles.

The castle of Rio in the Peloponnese. The bridge that links the straits is dominant above the castle.

Aerial picture of the castle of Antirio before the construction of the bridge. In the open space of the castle, performances and concerts take place every year. (Picture © from the book Aetoloakarnania, published by TEDK )

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