The Great Wall of Ston (Croatia)

One of my most pleasant memories is that of walking along the top of the Great Wall of China.  I never knew there was a smaller counterpoint in Croatia, until I read a post at Kuriositas today:

The walls circle the village of Ston and then climb up the hill to reach the Pozvizd Fortress.  They then follow a narrow strip of land (an isthmus) to meet with the walls of the village of Mali Stan.

When they were built, starting in the fifteenth century, they were heavily fortified – there are thirty rectangular towers and ten round ones dotted along the five kilometre stretch.  What was it that they were built to protect?  Apart from serving as a first line of defense for the fairly distant city of Dubrovnik they were constructed to protect a precious commodity – salt.

Photo credits Martijn Munneke and Wikimedia.