Remains o a castle of unknown origin on a hill overlooking a bend of river Kalamas in Thesprotia, in Epirus. The purpose of the castle was to survey the straits of the river at that point.

In the medieval period, Kalamas was the main route of transportation from the mountains to the sea, and it was navigable from its mouth, near Sagiada to the west, up to this point exactly.

The name “Zorianos” might come from a general of the Despotate of Epirus who lived around the end of the 13th century. According to another story, Zorianos was the name of bandit who had his lair here robbing travelers when crossing the river. In any case, the name of the location does not seem to be related to the castle.

History

We do not know when the castle was built. The prevailing theory is that it was a Venetian fort.

The Venetians occupied this region of Thesprotia from 1401 to 1479. During that time, they built a port and two fortresses in Sagiada, and it is possible that they had built this castle too, which must have been at the easternmost part of their domain, at the borders with Ottoman territory (the Turks had taken Epirus in 1430). The weak point of this hypothesis is that we do not have any record of the castle by Venetian or other sources. But the type of construction does seem to be 15th-century-Venetian, similar with other Venetian towers in Greece.
So despite the fact that we cannot be sure, the castle will be registered here as “Venetian”.

Sources