Travels through History : The Peloponnese – The Island of Spetses

This is an excerpt from my forthcoming book called Travels through History : The Peloponnese.

Spetses is the most western of the Saronic Gulf islands I visited. Spetses does not have an airport, so the only options are to get the ferry from the mainland port of Kosta on The Peloponnese or a hydrofoil from another of the Saronic Gulf islands or from Piraeus, depending on your itinerary. 

The ferry terminal is a concrete quay. The roll-on roll-off ferry – looking like a small freighter – berths on one side and the hydrofoils pull in on the other side. These are the medium-sized hydrofoils where people are allocated a seat when booking their ticket, even if you don’t realise it like me.

  The place where the hydrofoils and ferries stop is called Dapia, which means “fortified place” in Turkish. This area is the centre of island life, where most of the shopping and socialising is done at the many shops and cafes / restaurants in the area. 

The first thing I noticed after leaving the hydrofoil was that most people seem to use a scooter rather than walking or using a car. I left my bags in my hotel room and headed out to look around Spetses Port. I call it by this name, but it could equally be called Spetses Town, as it’s the largest community on the island. 

I headed in a north-westerly direction from the ferry quay towards the Poseidonion Grand Hotel, probably the most imposing accommodation on the island, dating from 1914. Apparently, the interior decoration invokes the Belle époque. In the square outside is a statue of Laskarina Pinotsi, known as Bouboulina, a Greek naval commander who attained the rank of Admiral during the Greek War of Independence that started in 1821. When her faction of freedom fighters were defeated, she was exiled to Spetses, where she died during a family feud in 1825. 

Just around the corner is another, smaller hotel for cats, with a cat restaurant next door, so the poor feline doesn’t have to go far for its food. Spetses keeps up the community cat programme that I’d seen in The Cyclades where people put kibbles in dishes and water in bowls to keep the cats healthy. This programme seems to work as I didn’t see a rat or mouse anywhere.

Nearby is an open-air cinema called Titania, showing a variety of current films. My information is that the Poseidonion Hotel runs the cinema during the summer only. According to a prominent sign, no souvlaki are allowed inside, you have been warned. The Bouboulina Museum is also close to here. If you’re at all interested in the Greek fight for independence, then this museum is well worth visiting, especially as you’re also helping preserve the old mansion where the museum is located. 

At seventeen, Bouboulina married Dimitrios Yannouzas and, after being widowed at 26, married Dimitrios Bouboulis four years later. Both her husbands were sea captains from Spetses, killed in naval battles with North African pirates. By the time she reached forty, Bouboulina had been widowed twice and was the mother of seven children, three with Yannouzas and four with Bouboulis. She was a wealthy woman and had excellent business acumen, increasing her wealth by becoming a part-owner of merchant ships, eventually building three of her own. One of these was the legendary Agamemnon, a 33-metre corvette armed with 18 heavy cannons, and considered to be one of the largest and fastest Greek warships of the revolution.