Castle of Loulouda

• Description

The castle of Loulouda is an impressive fortification, at the top of a towering and steep 600 m. in height rock , to  the north of Kokkari village.

Stepwise roads carved to the rock, lead to the houses, which were built on surfaces carved into the rock, exploiting the terraces of underlying houses (one above the other stepwise).

Emmanuel Kritikidis in 1869 mentions in his book “Topography of Samos”, that the castle had 150 houses and that probably the castle was inhabited (we conclude during the 14th to 15th century) by inhabitants of a coastal village, in today’s Kokkari, which they abandoned due to of pirate raids. The last inhabitants of the castle, abandoned it in 1476, with the desolation of the island, and moving to Chios island and Asia Minor.

According Emmanuel Kritikidis, the name of the castle originated from the daughter of a priest, which was named “Loulouda”. She  supossedly fell from the rocks and was killed during an epileptic seizure. The author and historian K.Tsakos, argues in his book, that the name comes from the word “Las” (=Λάς) => “Laloudi” (Λαλούδι) which in ancient Greek means rock and through the years was paraphrased to “Loulouda”.

The last fortification seems to belong to the middle Byzantine years, but the carvings οn the rock done to create the foundations as well as some ancient pottery show that the fortress was inhabited since ancient times.

 

• Features

• Construction time  : 7th century CE
  
• Origin                      : Byzantine
• Castle Type             : Castle
• Altitude                   : Elevation ≈ 530 m.
  
• Condition                : Ruins

• Admission

• • Free access.
    

Book source: “Samos Historical and archaeological guide” Author K.Tsakos

top