Piraeus (Pireas) Porte de Leone

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This city is best known as the port of Athens.,, and has occupied this role for some two and a half millennia. The population of the greater metropolitan area of this demos (which is really a city in its own right, though hard to tell for the urban sprawl that has joined it to Athens) is around 600,000. As such it is the third largest city in Greece, after Athens and Thessaloniki. Many visitors know it only as a port a place of transit, with over sixty ferry and hydrofoil departures per day in season, serving Greek Aegean and Ionian islands and some international destinations as well (Cyprus, Turkey, Israel and Egypt). In addition cruise ships with up 650,000 passengers per year depart from this third most important international passenger port, though perhaps the annual figure given for the total number of people who used the port in 1992 can give an idea of why this is so: a whopping 6.3 million. But passenger ships are not all that the port of Pireas serves. There is also the Greek merchant marine, with more than 3000 cargo and tanker ships, representing almost half of European tonnage.

If one looks at the geography, one can understand why all this is so. There is not just one natural harbor at Pireas, but three. The Great Harbor on the west side of a peninsula, and the two round harbors of Zea, and Mikrolimani (or Tourkolimano, which means 'Turkish harbor).. Piraeus was actually once an island surrounded by marshes. The Athenians used to keep their triremes (war ships with three banks of oars) on the beach of Phaleron Bay.

During the early 5th century BC, Themistokleous, who had created an Athenian fleet of 200 ships, decided to move the port of Athens from Phaleron to Pireas, because Phaleron was too exposed to Athens, while Piraeus was not. Fortifiications for the new port were begun in 493BC and were quite ambitious in scope, intended to include all of the double peninsula and the approaches from Athens. Periklis then ordered a city created near the harbor and consolidated the building of the Long Walls (nicknamed 'the Long Legs' by the Athenians, and which formed a fortified corridor. There were three of them; they were completed in 431 BC (some sixty years later) at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian Wars. One of the conditions for peace offered by Lysander after the defeat of Athens at Aegospotami (405BC) was the destruction of the two remaining Long Walls (the Phaleric wall already having decayed) along with the walls of both cities.

Piraeus' grid plan, still in place in modern times, was the work of Hippodamos of Miletus, a philosopher and geometer. The city was very prosperous for several centuries, doing lively trade in its stoas (porticos). The Romans under Sula sacked the town in 85BC and burned it as well., though it was revived later.

It became known as Porto Leone during medieval times, for the ancient lion statue in front of the harbor entrance which the Venetians carried away, setting it up before their Arsenal in Venice. Pausanius, in the 3rd century AD, described it as a beautiful city (as Athens was similarly described in the late 19th century). The city thrived under Roman and Macedonian rulers, but declined under Turkish rule to the point to being a village of a few hundred inhabitants, and finally, only 50, by the end of the Greek War of Independence in 1935.

It was only after the Greek War of Independence, in the 1830s that the city rose again, growing quite rapidly, its population swelled by immigrants fleeing after the Turkish massacre on the island of Chios; later immigrants came from Hydra, Crete and the Peloponnese. By WWI Pireaus superceded Syros as Greece's main port, a development also furthered by the opening of Suez and Corinth Canals in 1862 and 1893 respectively. The largest population explosion, however, began in 1923 with around 150,000 Asia Minor Greeks settling there (with far greater numbers settling in Athens), this after the compulsory 'population exchange' that followed what is known in Greece as the 'Katastrofi' (catastrophe). The refugees, though Greek, were in general seen and treated as a massive influx of unwelcome foreigners, but the contribution made by some of them to the now immensely popular musical genre known as Rembetika is well known in modern times, since its revival in recent decades. Pireaus was almost totally destroyed in World War II./ The United States' Marshall Plan played a huge role in its recovery afterward.

The modern port consists of Piraeus harbor, Herakles harbor, the Eleusinian Gulf (Kolpos Elefinas) and the two small harbors of Zea ( known during Ottoman times as Pashalimani) and Mikrolimano (Tourkolimano) which are used by fishing boats and yachts. The main Piraeus harbor (also called the Kendriki (Central) Harbor is used for domestic ferries as well as international passenger ships (the latter having their own martime station). The northern section of this central harbor is called Alon, and is used by coastal vessels. The outer port deals in wood and containers. Herakles harbor (to the west) is for freighters that unload their cargoes out of lower hatches directly onto the quay. Eleusinian Gulf is for ship repair and ship building.

Zea was the ancient port for triremes, where ship sheds, which lined the circular harbor, were used to store these ships to protect them from weather, some traces of these still surviving. During the 4th century BC there were as many as 372 of these sheds, spread between Zea, Munychia and Kantharos (the latter two names being ancient names for the other two harbors). In present times, Zea harbor can accommodate up to 400 recreational boats, its waterfront is a lively place with many tavernas and restaurants.

The Naval/Maritime Museum (open Tues-Fri 9am to 2pm, Sat 9am-1:30 pm; 1.50 euros admission) is behind the reclaimed shoreline here below Akti Themistokleous. It faces a formal garden in which military ware are displayed (guns, torpedo tubes, and the like). Part of the old Long Wall is incorporated in the building. There are 12 rooms with exhibits that illustrate the history of navigation in Greece from ancient times through World War II. Ship models include one from Santorini which was based on a fresco in the National Museum, a trireme from the Peloponnisian Wars, a Hellenistic merchant ship and a Byzantine war ship. There are maps that trace the travels of Ulysses, the Trojan War, Greek expeditions to the North Sea and Orient and reconstructions of naval battles including those at Salamis, Navarino, and the Dardanelles. There are also portraits of heroes from the War of Independence. A beacon from a lighthouse from Constantinople stands in the hallway of the museum. There is a landing stage near the museum for boats from visiting fleets and also the remains of a 4th century BC theater.

The Mikrolimani/Tourkolimano harbor is, like Kea/Pashalimani, lined with restaurants that look out on the yachts anchored there. Buses connect these small harbors with each other and with the central harbor.

The Piraeus Archaeological Museum

The Archaeological Museum (Open Tues-Sun 8:30am-3pm; 3 euros admission) is at Harilaou Trikoupi 31. This is a very good museum, with fascinating and well displayed material. A statue of Hermes stands in the entry way , dating from the 2nd century AD. In the main hall are fine Neoclassical reliefs of battles with the Amazons from 200 AD and a lion stele from Moschato, 400BC. There are busts of Roman emperors and other Roman sculpture, funerary urns and stelai. In the last room on the lower floor is a gigantic funerary monument from Kalithea with more Amazon battles and struggles with animals, as well as some free standing sculptures from around 400BC.

The upper floor houses 5th and 4th century BC funerary stelai, and an archaic kore (female version of the kouros) in a cylindrical shape from 580BC. The very beautiful Piraeus kouros is on this floor, which is the oldest known large scale hollow cast bronze statute. It was found with the clay filling and iron supports inside in good condition. It is believed to have been a cult statue of Apollo, and may have been made in a northeastern Peloponnesian workshop during the late 6th century BC. Other excellent bronzes form the same cache as the Piraeus kouros include one of Athena, with her helmet adorned with owls and griffins (350-300BC), Artemis with her quiver on her shoulder, and a smaller statue of Artemis. There is a Hellenistic theater next to the museum, the Theater of Zea from the 2nd century BC. The cavea was hewn out of the rock and divided by 14 flights of steps. Around the orchestra is a covered channel.

A nice way to spend time in Piraeus is to go for a walk on the south coast of the Akte peninsula, which is usually deserted. Sunsets over the mountain of Ymittos (Hymettos) and the coast to the east, which lights up the islands of the Saronic Gulf are particularly beautiful. A good place to begin the walk is at the point south of the Naval School. You can get there by bus and walk from there to the Pashalimani in about an hour. The western tip of the peninsula is a restricted naval area. The promontory of Alkimos is the spot where the Marble Lion stood that gave the medieval Pireus its name (Porto Leone and also Porto Draco). This was the lion that the Venetians took to Venice. It was probably fashioned on the island of Dhilos (Delos). West of this promontory are graves of English soldiers and a monument to the Greek admiral Andreas Miaoulis.

After that are quarries, a grave allegedly that of Themistokleous, and a column that marked the south harbor entrance, which was returned to its original place in 1952. Much of the western edge of the peninsula is flanked by the Wall of Konon, which still retains much of its lower courses. It was built from local stone during the 4th century BC, often from blocks cut from the rocks right above it. It is 3 to 3.5 meters thick, with square Towers every 46-55meters. Small tavernas now occupy some of the bases of these towers. Southeast of the Signal Station at the highest point of the peninsula a short stretch of Themistokleous' wall can still be seen.

Apart from Piraeus' main fame as the port of Athens, it is also a heavy industrial town, as well as the commercial center for all of the port related activities.such as banking, import export, and freight handling. It is pre-eminently a utilitarian place, with many of the older more atmospheric buildings demolished during the junta years. Some of its more attractive features are the harbor park three blocks from main harbor; antique and junk shops which sell items of copper and wood, and the Sunday flea market.