CASTLE OF AGIA MAVRA and ROTATING FLOATING BRIDGE at the entrance of the LEFKADA HARBOUR CANAL

Описание: The Mediaeval Castle of Agia Mavra (also known as Santa Maura) is a fortress on the northeastern part of the Greek island of Lefkada. The first walls of the castle of Agia Mavra were built by the Sicilian governor Giovanni Orsini, to protect the island and its surroundings from pirates. The first buildings of Agia Mavra were much smaller than today, but it was renovated several times and expanded with barracks, administrative buildings, cisterns and storerooms to become a walled city and the capital of the island at the beginning of the 15th century.
The Ottoman Empire took possession in 1479, and a century later renovated and expanded it, giving it mostly its current form. A large town grew outside the castle walls by the 1670s. The Turks ruled Agia Mavra until the 17th century: the Republic of Venice captured the fortress in 1684 after a short siege. The Venetians increased the area of the fortress and strengthened its walls. Under the Venetians, the castle was turned into a purely military installation; the walled city and the suburbs bordering the walls were razed to improve its defenses, and the capital moved to the island itself, on the site of today's city of Lefkada. The fortress was modernized at the beginning of the 18th century. The fortress, like the island, changed hands between France, the Russians, the Septinsular Republic and the French again in 1797–1810, before being captured by the British, who controlled it until the cession of the Ionian Islands to Greece in 1864..