The Medieval Village of Paleochora, Aegina

The ghost village with thirty-odd bell towers

Paleochora (“old town”, in Greek) is one of those places that even the tourist maps struggle to place properly. It sits on a hill in the interior of Aegina, 6 km from the port, tucked away among olive trees and cypresses. If you arrive by car, all you can see from the road is a hillside with domes and bell towers scattered across it like seeds thrown by hand. As you climb you realise that every dome is a chapel, and that between the chapels there are ruined houses, cisterns, collapsed walls and cobbled paths. This was a whole town. Today it is a ghost village with a liturgy.

A thousand years as a capital up on the hill

In the 9th century, the people living on Aegina’s coast fled inland from the Arab and Byzantine pirates then ravaging the Aegean. They built Paleochora on a defensible hill, half an hour from the coast, where a village cannot be seen from the sea. It held out that way for a thousand years: capital of the island from the 9th century to the early 19th, seat of the bishopric, with its own citadel at the top.

In 1537 came the moment that finished it all. Hayreddin Barbarossa, admiral to Suleiman the Magnificent and the most feared corsair in the Ottoman Mediterranean, attacked Aegina. Paleochora was sacked, its inhabitants killed or sold as slaves in Istanbul. The town never fully recovered, but it stayed inhabited for another three centuries. The final abandonment came in 1826, when the last residents came down the hill to found present-day Aegina town, which would shortly after become the first capital of modern Greece.

The houses fell down, but the chapels did not. And there are many of them: the most conservative count gives 35 churches and chapels, while several chroniclers push the figure to 365 (one for each day of the year), though most of that is legend. What can be verified is around 30, and those are the ones you will see today.

What you can visit (and what is closed)

The site is open to the public, no entrance fee and no fixed hours. You park at the foot of the hill next to the modern church of Agios Nektarios (not the big one, that is across the road: see Church of Agios Nektarios) and walk up a cobbled path. There are no information panels and no signage, so a map or a guidebook will help you a great deal in not missing things.

Of the 30 chapels, about 10 still have frescoes from the 13th to the 18th century and are permanently open, or will be opened if you can find the priest or the caretaker. The ones not to miss:

Episkopi, the old cathedral, with 14th-century frescoes.
Agios Dionysios, home of the saint and bishop who gave the place its name.
Stavros tou Christou (Cross of Christ), at the top, with the best-preserved frescoes.
Metamorfosis (Transfiguration), with its carved wooden iconostasis.

The ordinary houses have been flattened completely: all that is left is stone footings and the odd isolated arch.

Real pain points: come prepared

There is no shade and no facilities. Carry water and a hat, especially between 11am and 4pm in summer. There is nothing to buy up there.
The ground is uneven. Closed shoes, not flip-flops. There are loose stones and the paths climb at a moderate gradient.
There are no public toilets. Sort that out beforehand at the cafe by the entrance or at Agios Nektarios across the road.
Time needed: 1 hour for a quick loop, 2 hours if you go into every chapel that is open. Combined with the church of Agios Nektarios it adds up to half a day.

How to fit it into your day

The obvious combination is Agios Nektarios + Paleochora (they are literally opposite each other, separated by the road) and, if you still have time, carrying on up to the Temple of Aphaia, 8 km further east. Total: a long half day. The bus from Aegina to Agia Marina stops at Agios Nektarios; from there you cross the road carefully and walk up.

This is probably the most quiet and atmospheric visit on Aegina. Plenty of people give it 20 minutes and leave: make the opposite mistake, give it time. It is the sort of place where the details show up once you stop looking for them.