The most remote and atmospheric settlement on Thassos, Kastro is a tiny village in the island's interior, built around and beneath the walls of a Byzantine fortress on a rocky spur. The position is defensive and dramatic: the village hangs above deep pine forest with long views in every direction. It is reached by a winding mountain road that requires patience and a car with reasonable clearance; the reward is a place that feels genuinely cut off from the tourism that occupies most of the island's coast.
Very few people live here permanently now, but the village is not entirely abandoned. The Byzantine fortress walls are substantial and mostly intact, and the setting — small stone houses pressed against ancient walls, the pine forest dropping away below — is one of the more striking things on the island. Come here in the afternoon when the light hits the stone, and you will have it almost entirely to yourself.