Pallipuram Fort

Pallipuram Fort stands at the northern tip of Vypeen island in Ernakulam district. Portuguese sailors put it up in timber on 27 September 1503 and rebuilt it in stone by 1505, making it the oldest European fort still standing in India. The Dutch took it in the 1660s and sold it to Travancore in 1789, which held it until independence; Kerala protected it as a monument in 1964. The name comes from the nearby church, palli in Malayalam, the Basilica of Our Lady of Snows.

The fort is a squat three-storey hexagon, the shape locally called ayikkotta. Each face is roughly 32 feet wide, the walls of laterite, lime, granite and wood are up to six feet thick, and every side carries three openings for cannon. Inside are a granite central pillar, a wooden upper floor and a small cellar thought to have held gunpowder, and remains of old and newer chapels lie close by.