Angelokastro is a ruined Byzantine citadel on Corfu's northwest coast, near Palaiokastritsa, standing on a steep cliff about 1,000 feet (305 meters) above the Ionian Sea. The builder is unknown, with attributions to Michael I Komnenos Doukas, Despot of Epirus, and his son Michael II. Excavations in 1999 found Early Christian slabs suggesting fortification between the fifth and seventh centuries, and the earliest document is an Angevin one of 1272.
Under Venice, from 1387 to the late sixteenth century, it was the island's capital. It never fell, despite a Genoese siege in 1403 and Ottoman sieges in 1537, 1571 and 1716, when villagers sheltered inside.
The Church of Archangel Michael stands at its highest point, and three underground cisterns supplied water. Restoration began in 1999. The Greek Ministry of Culture owns it, and it is open to the public.
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