Aegina

Aegina is 40 minutes from Piraeus by hydrofoil and the easiest island day trip in Greece. Most Athenians treat it that way: Sunday lunch in Souvala or Perdika, a swim and the boat back. Stay one night and you see more of the island. Stay two and it becomes more interesting still.

The Temple of Aphaia stands on a pine-covered ridge in the east of the island. It was built around 500 BC and is among the best-preserved Doric temples anywhere. Its pediment sculptures, the carved figures from its gables, were acquired by the Bavarian crown prince Ludwig in 1811 and are now in the Glyptothek in Munich. What remains in place is the architecture, and there is plenty of it. The temple is the third corner of the so-called Sacred Triangle. With the Parthenon in Athens and the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, it forms a roughly equilateral triangle on the Saronic, and each is visible from the others on a clear day.

In 1828, as Greece emerged from the War of Independence, Aegina was the seat of the first government, under Ioannis Kapodistrias. The first national bank, the first newspaper, the first orphanage and the first official coinage of the modern state all began here, before Nafplio took over as capital. The Markellos Tower in Aegina town, where the early government met, is open to visitors. Nikos Kazantzakis later kept a house above the western coast and finished Zorba the Greek there in 1946.

Pistachios are the island’s working economy. The Aegina pistachio, with its thin shell and resinous flavour, carries PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) status and has been grown here since the early twentieth century. The Fistiki Fest in mid-September draws Greek visitors who come specifically for it. Perdika, on the south-western tip, is the place for a long fish lunch, with a view across the strait to the small island of Moni. Moni is uninhabited and good for an afternoon’s swimming.

House Notes

  1. Arrival

    The helicopter from Athens to Aegina takes around 15 minutes, and AegeanVIP and iFly Air Charters both fly the route. Public traffic lands at the town quay. The carriage rank waits at the head of the harbour, and the fishing fleet works around its edges.

  2. The address

    Aeginitikon Arhontikon, a short walk from the Tower of Markellos, has stood in Aegina town since 1700. The mansion took its neoclassical front in the early 1900s, and Fotis Voulgarakis restored it completely in 1987. It has 12 rooms around two shaded inner courtyards, with ceilings painted by Milanese artists.

  3. Agios Nektarios

    The Monastery of Agios Nektarios was built in 1904 and is now home to 14 nuns. It holds the tomb of Saint Nektarios, who came to Aegina in 1908 and spent his remaining years here. He died in 1920 and was canonised, or declared a saint, in 1961. The monastery asks for modest dress: no shorts and no bare shoulders.

  4. Paleochora

    Paleochora lies 7 kilometres east of the port, behind the Agios Nektarios hill. It was Aegina’s capital from the 9th century until 1826, built inland to escape Saracen pirates. Of the original 366 chapels, one for each day of the year, some 38 remain, with their Byzantine frescoes intact. The setting recalls Mystras.

  5. Kolona

    Kolona is the single 8-metre Doric column of the late archaic Temple of Apollo, beside the town port. The temple was completed around the 6th century BC, before the Parthenon. The archaeological park around it holds Early and Middle Helladic remains, Mycenaean walls, a theatre and a stadium, and the Aegina Archaeological Museum stands on the site.

  6. The Eynardeio School

    The Eynardeio School, built in 1830 by the architects Stamatis Kleanthis and Eduard Schaubert, was the first neoclassical building of the modern Greek state. It was also the first institution of higher education in free Greece. The Swiss banker and philhellene J.G. Eynard, a friend of Kapodistrias, paid for it, under the direction of Georgios Gennadios.

  7. The Governor’s House

    The Governor’s House is a two-storey stone building near the cathedral. The Archimandrite Grigorios Moiras built it in 1803, and in 1827 it was renovated to receive Ioannis Kapodistrias and the offices of the modern Greek state. From 1828 to 1829 it was his residence and the seat of the country’s government. It now holds the historical archive of Aegina.

  8. The pistachio

    Tzitzis, the AEGINAI-Nuts house, has processed and packed the PDO Aegina pistachio since 1952. PDO, or Protected Designation of Origin, ties a product to its place. It was the first such operation licensed in Greece. Giannis Tzitzis founded it on his own estates, and his son Nikos modernised its standardisation in 1989. The family still runs the trade from the harbour.

  9. The Kapralos Museum

    The Christos Kapralos Museum stands in the Plakakia district, on the coast a short way north of the town. It fills the six halls of the sculptor’s own workshop and has been an annex of the National Gallery since 2006. The permanent work dates from 1963 to 1993. Ask for the room with the plaster cast of his 40-metre porous-stone Monument to the Battle of Pindus.

  10. The ouzeri

    Skotadis, on the Aegina town port, has been the island’s ouzeri, a taverna for ouzo and small plates, since 1945. It serves top-quality fish and seafood with a modern hand: fried cod with skordalia, a garlic dip, octopus and the seafood orzo. Sit on the quay, where the boats unload across from the door.

Anchorage Notes

  1. The town quay

    Aegina’s central port lies 18 nautical miles from Piraeus. The Municipal Port Fund of Aegina administers it, a public body whose remit covers commercial, passenger and tourist traffic together and extends to the owners of recreational craft as well as the ferries. It is first of all the island’s administrative harbour, and the office of record for a berth anywhere on the coast.

  2. Perdika

    The Port Fund names Perdika, on the island’s southern point, as the harbour for pleasure craft large and small. Water and electricity reach the docking area, and a berth is arranged beforehand by telephone with the Municipal Port Authority, giving the dates of arrival and departure. The village is known for its fish, which is why skippers know its quay.

  3. Moni

    Moni is a day anchorage and little more: an islet 10 minutes from Perdika and 20 from the town port, whose permanent residents are peacocks, deer and wild goats. An organised beach with a bar takes up one shore, and the rest is left alone. Boats cross from Perdika every hour through the season and return the same way.

  4. Souvala

    Souvala, on the north coast, is the second of the island’s passenger ports, and it is busy in summer, when the ferries run often to Piraeus. Holiday houses stand behind the beaches, the tavernas face the water, and the fishing boats keep to the crescent of the harbour.

  5. Agia Marina

    Agia Marina is on the eastern side, where the pine forest comes down to the water and the Port Fund counts quiet anchorages among the coves. A passenger connection to Piraeus runs in summer only. The Temple of Aphaia stands on the hill above the bay, so this landfall is remembered for what waits ashore.

Mythology

  1. Britomartis

    On Aegina, Britomartis was worshipped as Aphaea. Pausanias traces her worship on the island back to her escape from Minos and records the Aeginetan belief that the goddess still appeared there.

  2. Hecate

    Pausanias says the Aeginetans honoured Hecate above the other gods and held a rite for her every year. Her walled sanctuary held a temple and a wooden image of her by Myron, with a single body.

  3. The Myrmidons

    In Apollodorus, the Myrmidons begin on Aegina, where Aeacus is alone until Zeus turns the ants of the island into people. In Ovid, a plague first empties the kingdom of Aeacus, and the people born from ants fill it again.

  4. The Temple of Aphaia

    The Temple of Aphaia on Aegina is the main building of the island goddess’s sanctuary, built around 500 to 490 BC. Its pediments set Athena among heroes of Aegina in two battles at Troy, and the surviving figures are in the Glyptothek in Munich.

  5. Theia

    Pindar’s Isthmian 5, written for this island, opens by calling on Theia as mother of the Sun and of many names. It was composed for the Aeginetan athlete Phylacidas, and the poet says he has come with it for the sons of Lampon to this well-governed city.