Aegina Ferry

An Aegina ferry is a boat that carries passengers across the Saronic Gulf between Athens and the Greek island of Aegina. It is one of the island and sea Greece tours that start from Athens.

What is an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry is a boat that carries passengers and is linked to the island of Aegina. The municipality of Aegina is a local government area. It covers the island plus offshore islets, which are small islands lying close to the coast.

The municipality of Aegina is part of the Islands regional unit. Such a unit is a district within a bigger region, a bit like a county. That district lies within the Attica region. Anyone who reads about an Aegina ferry can use these names to place the island on a map.

The northern and western sides of Aegina are stony but fertile plains. Plains are wide stretches of flat land. Stony means the ground holds rocks, while fertile means the soil is rich enough for crops to grow. Knowing the land helps readers picture the island that gives an Aegina ferry its name.

Aegina’s municipality is divided into five communities. A community is a small district inside a municipality, with a name of its own. Kypseli, Mesagros and Vathy are three of them, and each has a different number of residents. The number of people who live in a place is called its population.

• Kypseli: In 2021, the community of Kypseli on Aegina had a population of 2,166.
• Mesagros: In 2021, the community of Mesagros on Aegina had a population of 1,473.
• Vathy: In 2021, the community of Vathy on Aegina had a population of 1,449.

On the east coast of Aegina lies Portes, a fishing village. A fishing village is a small seaside settlement where people earn a living by catching fish. Portes adds one more local name for readers who want to know the island behind an Aegina ferry.

Which gulf does an Aegina ferry cross?

An Aegina ferry crosses the Saronic Gulf, a large area of sea partly enclosed by land. Myth says the gulf is named after King Saron, a ruler from an old tale. In that old tale, he drowned in Psiphaea, a lake that is now called Psifta.

The Megara Gulf forms the northern end of the Saronic Gulf, the sea behind every Aegina ferry crossing. Salamis is the largest of the Saronic Islands, a group of islands that lie in the gulf. These islands have played a pivotal role, meaning a key part, in the history of Greece.

Old stories surround the water an Aegina ferry crosses. Myth describes the gulf as six gateways into the Underworld, where the dead go in Greek belief. Myth says a thief or bandit guarded each entrance. The gulf also has real history, because the ancient port of Cenchreae once stood on its shore.

The site of the former Ellinikon airport lies in the northeast of the gulf. Former means that the airport no longer operates there. Refineries are plants that turn crude oil, which is taken from the ground, into fuels. They stand around the northern gulf, at Eleusis, Aspropyrgos, Skaramangas and Keratsini.

• Kechries Bay: This bay, a curve in the coast where the sea reaches inland, lies in the gulf’s northwest.
• Sofiko Bay: This second bay lies in the east of the gulf.
• Phaleron and Elefsina: Phaleron Bay and Elefsina Bay are also bays of the gulf, and Elefsina Bay lies to the north.

The gulf behind an Aegina ferry route has an industrial side too. A large proportion of the refined petroleum products from the gulf’s refineries is exported. Petroleum products are fuels and other goods made from oil, and exported goods are sold to other countries.

What does Piraeus add to an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry is tied to Piraeus, a port with very large passenger traffic. Passenger traffic means the number of travellers who pass through a port. At the Port of Piraeus, it reached 15.5 million in 2017, which shows how busy the port is.

A cruise ship is a large vessel built for holidays at sea. Cruise traffic counts the passengers who travel on such ships. Anyone planning an Aegina ferry crossing meets a port that handled 1,098,091 cruise passengers in 2019. For the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, 13 cruise ships docked in Piraeus as floating hotels.

A land bridge is a thin stretch of land joining two larger areas. The land bridge to Piraeus had the ancient name Halipedon, meaning salt field. Piraeus had three deep-water harbours, which are harbours deep enough for large ships. The main port was Cantharus, and the smaller two were Zea and Munichia.

During the classical period, the naval base in Piraeus had 372 trireme shipsheds, which housed ancient warships. In 404 BC, a Spartan fleet under Lysander blockaded Piraeus, and Athens then surrendered. A blockade means a fleet cuts off a port. Knowing this past adds depth to any Aegina ferry trip.

• Duty: The port charged a tax, called a duty, of 2 percent on goods passing through.
• Destruction: The Roman Lucius Cornelius Sulla captured and totally destroyed Piraeus in 86 BC.
• Lion: Francesco Morosini looted the Piraeus Lion in 1687 during his expedition against Athens.

Permanent habitation of the Piraeus area restarted in 1829, after failed attempts in 1792 and 1825. Permanent habitation means that people settled there to live for good. That restart gives every Aegina ferry traveller a fuller understanding of Piraeus.

What types of vessel serve an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry is a boat that carries passengers or vehicles across water. Designers weigh the route length, how much it can carry, the speed required and the water conditions. Each of these needs changes how the whole vessel is built.

A hydrofoil is a boat with wing-shaped blades, called foils, fixed under its hull. As the craft gains speed, the foils raise the hull up out of the water, cutting drag. Drag is the pull of water that slows a boat. A foil moving through water turns the flow downward, which pushes the foil upward.

V-shaped foils are called surface-piercing. Parts of the V rise above the water when the boat rides on its foils. Fully submerged foils stay below the surface. They are less affected by wave action, so they are more stable and comfortable. Stability matters on an Aegina ferry as on any other ferry.

Sea conditions matter to every Aegina ferry, whatever its design. A catamaran is a boat with twin hulls joined side by side. Catamarans replaced hovercraft, which ride on a cushion of air above the water. They did so because they are nearly as fast and are less affected by sea and weather conditions.

• Double-ended ferry: Its front and back ends are interchangeable, so it shuttles between two ports without turning around.
• Roll-on/roll-off ferry: Large, standard ferries take their name from how easily vehicles board and leave.
• Cruiseferry: This ship combines the features of a cruise ship with a roll-on/roll-off ferry.

High-speed catamarans have revolutionised ferry services. They replaced hydrofoils, and also conventional monohull ferries. A monohull is a ferry built on a single hull. With these terms, a reader can describe any Aegina ferry and tell one ferry design from another.

What does Aegina Town add to an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry trip can add a walk through Aegina Town, a living place with its own history. In 2021, the community of Aegina, which is its official local area, had 6,976 residents. Bus services also link the town with other parts of the island.

Kapodistrias built the Orphanage in 1828–29. It was a shelter for children orphaned in the Greek War of Independence. That war was fought for a free Greece. Locals call the Orphanage building ‘The Prison’. Travellers on an Aegina ferry can read this history in the town’s buildings.

The Orphanage building held political prisoners during the Greek Junta of 1967–1974. Political prisoners are people jailed for their political beliefs or actions, not for ordinary crimes. A junta is a small group that rules a country after taking power, not leaders chosen by voters. The Greek Junta is the name for those years.

The Archaeological Museum of Aegina displays its exhibits in three rooms. Archaeology is the science of learning about history from objects that people left behind. The museum holds ancient pottery, statuettes, inscriptions, coins and weapons. Statuettes are small statues, and inscriptions are words carved into stone. An Aegina ferry traveller can study these objects.

• Stone walls: The museum is housed in a stone building at ground-floor level.
• Central patio: A patio, which is an open courtyard, sits in the middle of the museum building.
• Wooden portico: The building also has a portico, a roofed porch, and this one is made of wood.

A statue in the principal square, or main square, honours Ioannis Kapodistrias, first administrator of free modern Greece. To commemorate means to keep someone’s memory alive. Anyone who takes an Aegina ferry can stop at this statue and remember him.

Who was Kapodistrias behind an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry reaches an island tied to Ioannis Kapodistrias. His arrival on Aegina came on 8 January 1828. He is regarded as the person who founded the modern Greek state. A founder is the person who starts something new, such as a country.

In 1827 at Troezen, the Third National Assembly chose Kapodistrias as the first head of state of an independent Greece. A National Assembly is a meeting of chosen representatives. A head of state is the leader of a country. Passengers on an Aegina ferry sail toward an island that became part of that same history.

The assembly also gave him the title Kyvernetes, which in English means Governor. A title is the name of a job or rank. That title was given for a term of seven years. A term is a fixed period of time during which a leader is allowed to hold an office.

He served as governor of Greece between 1828 and 1831. A governor is a leader who runs a country for its people. He was briefly established on Aegina, meaning he settled on the island for a short time. Anyone who boards an Aegina ferry today reaches the island where this short stay took place.

• Learning and work: The orphanage building, a home for children without parents, also housed schools and workshops.
• Reading: The same building held the National Public Library, a library for the public.
• Printing: It also housed the National Printing Office, a place where papers and books are printed.

In 2007, Aegina, Nafplion, Corfu, Koper and Famagusta founded the Ioannis Kapodistrias Network. A network is a group of places or people that stay linked with one another. Today, an Aegina ferry brings travellers to one of those linked places by sea.

What does the Temple of Aphaia add to an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry reaches an island in the Saronic Gulf. There the Temple of Aphaia stands in a sanctuary, a sacred place set apart for worship. The temple turns the sea crossing into a visit to an ancient holy site.

The building has carried two names. It was formerly called the Temple of Jupiter Panhellenius. Experts now recognise it as a Doric temple dedicated to the mother-goddess Aphaia. Doric describes an ancient Greek building style with plain, sturdy columns. A mother-goddess is a goddess honoured as a parent figure to her worshippers.

Two temples have stood on this same ground. The temple that stands there today dates from about 500 BC. It was built over an earlier temple of about 570 BC. The goddess Aphaia was worshipped at this sanctuary alone. The Aegina ferry thus brings a traveller to a faith tied to one place.

Two groups of artists are linked to the temple on Aegina. Neoclassical artists copied the look of ancient Greece and Rome, while Romantic artists valued strong feeling. Artists of both groups, such as J. M. W. Turner, favoured the site. A trip by Aegina ferry therefore leads to a place with a record in art.

• Centre: Athena stood at the centre of each pediment, the triangular gable above the columns.
• Corners: Fallen warriors filled the narrowing corners, where the triangle tapers to a point.
• Story: The pediments showed Aegina’s greatness through its local heroes, warriors of legend, in two Trojan wars.

The marble figures of both pediments are shown in the Glyptothek, a sculpture museum in Munich. The temple and those figures are therefore seen in two separate places. An Aegina ferry reaches the temple on the island, while the figures remain in Munich.

What does Mount Oros add to an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry ends at an island where Mount Oros is the highest rise, at 531 m. A rise is a high point of land. Oros is a conical peak, meaning a peak shaped like a cone, and it stands in the south.

Two-thirds of the island of Aegina is made up of an extinct volcano. A volcano is extinct when it has stopped erupting, unlike a volcano that is still active. Two-thirds means two parts out of every three equal parts of the island. Passengers on an Aegina ferry therefore reach an island that is largely volcanic.

The southern volcanic part of Aegina is rugged and mountainous. Rugged means the ground is rough, broken and uneven. Mountainous means the land rises into high hills and peaks. The same southern volcanic part of Aegina is largely barren. Barren means bare, with very little plant life growing on the ground.

The Panhellenian ridge stretches northward. A ridge is a long, narrow strip of high ground that runs in one direction. Narrow fertile valleys lie on either side of it. Fertile means the soil is rich and holds what plants need to grow well. A valley is low land between two higher slopes.

• Arc: Aegina is one of the volcanoes in a bow-shaped line, the South Aegean Volcanic Arc, and an Aegina ferry reaches it.
• Magma: Magma, melted rock, broke through thinned crust, the Earth’s outer layer, and formed a second volcanic arc.
• Belt: The southern Aegean region of the Himalayan-Alpine belt, a band of mountains, is rapidly changing shape.

The northern and western plains are well cultivated, which means farmers work the land there. These northern and western plains produce crops of grain, vines, almonds, olives and figs. An Aegina ferry therefore leads to an island of farmland as well as volcanic rock.

What do Perdika and Moni add to an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry brings travellers to an island with a village called Perdika on its south-west coast. Perdika lies nine kilometres away from Aegina town. The islet of Moni, which means a very small island, lies off that same stretch of coast.

Perdika grew up as a fishermen’s settlement, a small community of people who fish for a living. Today the village is a tourist destination on an island that travellers reach by Aegina ferry. Perdika counted 680 residents in the 2011 census, a head count run by the state.

The village is arranged around its harbour, which is the sheltered water where boats tie up. A marina for boats operates in that harbour. A marina is a dock area where boats are kept. A church stands on the seafront, which is the strip of the village that runs along the sea.

The village stands on a small headland, a finger of land poking into the sea. That small headland faces the islet of Moni. Moni lies less than 500 metres from that headland, across the water. For a traveller on an Aegina ferry, the headland and the islet are two places to know.

• Name: Moni belongs to the Chrysoleontissa monastery, a religious community’s home, which is why it is called Moni.
• Feast day: The headland church of Agios Sostis holds its feast day, its day of celebration, on 7 September.
• Height: Moni rises to a highest point of 179 metres, the top of the islet.

Perdika has two beaches. One lies at the harbour entrance, where boats come in. The other lies beyond the headland, on the far side of it. Together with the islet of Moni, the beaches give an Aegina ferry trip a clear coastal setting.

What does Paleochora add to an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry reaches an island where Paleochora was the main settlement until the early 19th century. The settlement stands on a northern peak above the monastery of Agios Nektarios. A monastery is a house where monks or nuns live as a religious community.

Continuous pirate raids pushed islanders off the coast and into the inland stronghold of Paleochora, also spelled Paliachora. A stronghold is a fortified place built to resist attack, and a pirate is a sea robber. The raids are the reason islanders moved inland, a story worth knowing before an Aegina ferry crossing.

The peak of Paleochora has been identified with Oie, an ancient city. Aiginetans, the people of Aegina, brought two wooden statues to Oie. The statues were of Auxesia and Damia, and came from a place called Epidaurus. A traveller on an Aegina ferry therefore lands on an island with an ancient past.

Work on a castle on the summit of Paleochora started in the mid-1400s. A summit is the top of a hill, and a castle is a strong building for defence. The castle stood on top of the peak at a height of 355 metres. A metre is a unit of length.

• Cliff sides: Nature guarded the castle’s south and west flanks with the steep slope of the cliff.
• North side: Nobody lived on the north side, so ships at sea were unable to spot the settlement.
• Buildings: The settlement was packed with small houses and churches, so it was a crowded place.

Barbarossa demolished the houses of Paleochora, and its inhabitants were enslaved or massacred. Enslaved means forced to live without freedom, and massacred means killed in large numbers. These events are part of the past that an Aegina ferry brings within reach.

What does Kolona add to an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry carries travellers to an island with a long human story. Kolona is one place where that story can still be read. The site lies to the north of Aegina town. It adds ancient buildings, workshops and finds to the trip.

An Aegina ferry trip can add the Doric temple of Apollo at Kolona. Doric is a plain, sturdy column style. The temple had a plan of six columns by eleven. Together with the buildings around it, the temple towers over the old acropolis on the hill. An acropolis is the raised upper part of a town.

An Aegina ferry reaches the island where Kolonna was the leading Early Bronze Age settlement. That name means the early part of the Bronze Age, when people made tools from bronze. The settlement was fortified, which means it was built to defend itself. The site itself was built of stone.

The strongest ties of Kolonna led to the Greek mainland. Finds at the site also show Cycladic and Cretan influences. Links are contact between places. Influences are traces of the styles and habits of other places. Cycladic describes the Cyclades, an island chain of Greece. Cretan means from the Greek island of Crete.

• Dye workshop: A workshop for making purple dye, from the 16th century BC, was uncovered by digs at Cape Kolonna.
• Wild boar tusk helmets: The earliest finds come from Kolonna, dated to around 1800 BC or 1600 BC.
• 1925 dig: Paul Wolters and Gabriel Welter dug together at Aegina Kolonna in 1925.

The Kolona acropolis holds a sanctuary of Apollo, which is a holy place, and a Byzantine settlement. Byzantine means from the medieval Greek-speaking empire that grew out of ancient Rome. Together, they add layers of history to any Aegina ferry visit.

What does the pistachio add to an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry brings travellers to an island that pistachios have made famous worldwide. A traveller who learns the nut’s story sees the farms, the food and the past with clearer eyes. That extra context is what the pistachio adds to the trip.

Pistachio growing on the island has a history of change. By 1950, it had significantly displaced the island’s other farming. Phylloxera, a tiny insect that attacks grapevine roots, threatened the vineyards at the time pistachio growing took over. A traveller who steps off an Aegina ferry arrives on land shaped by that shift.

Grigorios Konidaris founded the first pistachio peeling factory in the Plakakia area in the early 1960s. A peeling factory is a workshop that removes the soft outer skin from the fresh nuts. Anyone who plans an Aegina ferry trip around food can remember this name whenever pistachios come up.

Today Aegina is known for growing pistachios. Dry weather and volcanic soil on the island win its pistachios an excellent name abroad. A dry climate means little rain, and volcanic soil is earth made from the rock of a volcano. Both traits belong to the land itself, not to any farmer’s choice.

• Cooperative: Half of Aegina’s pistachio growers belong to its cooperative, a farmers’ group that works together.
• Output: Across the island, total pistachio production reaches 2,700 tons per year.
• Hardy tree: The pistachio is a desert plant, made for dry land, and highly tolerant of salty soil.

A pistachio festival called Fistiki Fest is held on Aegina every year in mid-September. The festival gives the nut a place on the island’s yearly calendar. A traveller who knows this background adds real context to every Aegina ferry trip, whatever the month.

What do ancient coins add to an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry reaches the island where the earliest known stamped stater was made around 650 BC. Stater is the name of an ancient Greek coin. Stamped means that a design was pressed into the metal of the coin using a tool.

A traveller on an Aegina ferry heads for an island whose earliest coins were made of electrum. Electrum is a mix of gold and silver. Those early coins showed a sea turtle on the front side. The back carried a punch mark, which is a dent hammered into the metal by a tool.

A weight standard is the agreed weight a coin must match. The Aeginetic weight standard, named for Aegina, was about 12.2 grams. In the 7th century BC, it caught on across the cities of Greece. The stater was divided into two drachmae. Each drachma was a smaller coin and held 6.1 grams of silver.

Aegina’s silver stater turns up in hoards in Egypt and the Levant. A hoard is a group of coins found together in one place. The Levant is the name for the coastal lands east of Greece. Passengers on an Aegina ferry arrive at an island whose silver coin appears in places beyond Greece.

• Silver: Silver was in short supply in both Egypt and the Levant.
• Sacred animal: The turtle on the early electrum stater was sacred, meaning holy, to the goddess Aphrodite.
• Mints: Other cities began to mint, which means to make, coins to the Aeginetan weight standard.

By 456 BC, during the First Peloponnesian War, a land tortoise replaced the sea turtle on the coins. That war was a conflict fought between Greek states. Today an Aegina ferry still reaches the island that once made these ancient Greek coins.

What does the Battle of Salamis add to an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry gains a story from the Battle of Salamis, a sea fight of 480 BC. Greek city-states, which were cities ruling themselves like small countries, stood on one side. On the other side was Xerxes with his Persian empire, a large state.

The battle was fought in the straits between the mainland and Salamis, an island near Athens. A strait is a narrow band of water with land on both sides. Before the battle, the Greek fleet, meaning its warships, withdrew to Salamis Island. A traveller on an Aegina ferry can place it on a map.

Herodotus, an ancient writer, reports 378 triremes in the Greek fleet. A trireme was an ancient warship, built to fight at sea. Aeschylus fought at Salamis himself. He gave the Greek fleet as 310 triremes, which is a lower count. The numbers differ, which leaves a gap to explain.

Herodotus says Aegina fought at Salamis with thirty ships. It kept other ships with crews back to guard home. One explanation for the gap is a garrison of 12 ships left at Aegina. A garrison is a force left to defend a place. An Aegina ferry reaches the island named in these counts.

• Themistocles: The Greek city-states fought the Battle of Salamis under the command of this man.
• Eurybiades: This man from Sparta nominally led the Greek fleet, which means he led it in name.
• Diodorus: He says people from Megara and Aegina held the right of the Greek line of ships.

On March 17, 2017, archaeologists, who learn about history from the remains people left behind, announced a find. They had uncovered the partly underwater remains of the Greek warships’ anchorage, where ships anchor. An Aegina ferry traveller can link that find to this story.

What does Agistri add to an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry plan gains a second island to think about, and its name is Agistri. Agistri lies very close to the larger island of Aegina. In plain terms, the two islands are close neighbours, and Agistri is the smaller one of the pair.

Agistri is a small inhabited island, so people live on it. It is also a municipality, which is an area with its own local government. The island sits in the Saronic Gulf, a large bay of the sea. Readers who look into an Aegina ferry get a clear picture of Agistri from these labels.

The land of Agistri adds up to 13.367 square kilometres. A square kilometre equals a square plot measuring 1 km by 1 km. Land area counts the dry ground, not the sea around it. Readers who study an Aegina ferry can use that figure to judge the size of the island.

In 2011 the Prefecture of Piraeus, a regional authority, officially recognised Agistri as a green island. Green island is a formal label, which means the title came from a public body. Readers who research an Aegina ferry can treat that label as a recorded fact, not as an opinion.

• Milos: This is the main village of Agistri, and the majority of islanders live there.
• Limenaria: This tiny village lies on the island’s far side.
• Arvanites: This group of settlers is thought to have started settling Agistri in the late 17th century.

The 2021 Greek census counted 1,131 inhabitants on the island. A census is a full count of a country’s people, carried out by the state. An inhabitant is a person who lives in a particular place. The name Agistri means fishing hook in English.

What does Poros add to an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry day gains a second island stop when Poros joins the plan. Poros, like other Saronic ports, draws Athenians at weekends as a popular destination. Saronic ports are the harbour towns on the islands that lie near Athens.

The highest peak on Poros is Vigla, which stands 358 metres tall in the island’s west-centre. A peak is the top of a hill or mountain. Large areas of the south and middle of Poros hold old pine forest. An Aegina ferry plan that includes Poros therefore covers both high ground and forest.

Besides Poros town, the island has two smaller villages, named Agios Nektarios and Kyani Akti. The municipality of Poros is its official local-government area. That area has 49.582 square kilometres of land. Land area counts only dry ground, not the sea around the island. A village is a small settlement.

The Venetians occupied Poros in the year 1484. They used it as a strategic port against the Ottomans. A strategic port is a harbour that helps one side control a nearby area. The Ottomans were the rulers of a rival empire of that time. Poros therefore adds real history to an Aegina ferry day.

• Old name: Pogon was the ancient name of the island that is now called Poros.
• Beaches: Along the south shore lie sandy beaches, and Vayionia, a bay in the north, is the exception.
• Population: Under Venetian rule, Poros had about 15,000 people, ranking among the largest cities in Greece.

Von Heideck built Bourtzi castle around 1828 on the site of an old church of St. Constantine. A castle is a fortified home built to defend a place. That landmark is one more reason to pair Poros with an Aegina ferry day.

What does Hydra add to an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry plan gains a second island with a strong reputation when Hydra joins it. In 2007, a panel of 522 experts gave Hydra the top rating among Greek islands. That rating reflects the opinions of hundreds of experts, not of one critic.

The Dorian invasion was a move into Greece by a people called the Dorians. Around the 12th century BCE, that invasion appears to have emptied Hydra of people. BCE labels years counted backward from the start of the modern calendar. An Aegina ferry day that adds Hydra reaches back to that distant past.

Hydra also has a long record tied to the sea. In 1645, the island opened its first school for mariners, which is another word for sailors. Until after 1718, conflict between Venice and the Ottoman Empire limited Hydra’s shipping development. The Ottoman Empire was a large empire based in what is now Turkey.

In 1792, a plague struck Hydra. A plague is an illness that kills and spreads quickly through a community. It killed a large part of the island’s population, meaning the people who lived there. Any Aegina ferry trip that adds Hydra also adds this hard chapter of the island’s past.

• Obsidian: This black volcanic glass from Milos has been found on Hydra.
• Mount Chorissa: Pieces of vases, tools and an idol’s head, a figure used in worship, were found there.
• Tarpon Springs: This Florida place was the best-known destination of people who moved abroad from Hydra.

In the story of Hydra, sponge prosperity lasted until 1932, when Egypt forbade fishing along its coast. A sponge is a sea animal whose dried body people use for washing. These facts show why an Aegina ferry plan with Hydra added carries real history.

What does Attica add to an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry plan begins on land, and that land is called Attica. Attica is a historical region that covers the whole Athens metropolitan area. That phrase means the capital city together with all the towns that lie around it.

Attica is a peninsula, meaning land that stretches out into the sea. In this case the sea in question is the Aegean Sea. The neighbouring regions are Boeotia to the north and Megaris to the west. These neighbouring regions help set an Aegina ferry plan on the map of Greece.

Four mountains, Aigaleo, Parnitha, Penteli and Hymettus, surround the hilly plain where the city of Athens now spreads. Parnitha, one of the four, is the highest mountain of Attica. Pine and fir forests cover the area around Parnitha. Both of these trees are evergreens, which means they keep their needles all year long.

Lake Marathon is the reservoir of Athens, a lake that stores water for the city. It is artificial, so people made it by damming in 1920. Damming means building a barrier across a river to hold the water back. That lake is one more feature of the region around an Aegina ferry plan.

• Old name: Tradition says Attica was first called Actaea, then renamed for Atthis, daughter of King Cranaus of Athens.
• Northern border: The Cithaeron and Parnes mountain ranges, 16 km long, divide Attica from Boeotia on the north.
• Longest river: The longest river in Attica, the Kifisos, begins on the foothills, the low hills below Parnitha, near Varibobi.

The Mycenaean period is an early era of ancient Greek history. In it, the inhabitants of Attica lived in autonomous agricultural societies. Autonomous means self-governing, and agricultural means based on farming. That early history gives an Aegina ferry story a deep past to start from.

What questions come up about an Aegina ferry?

An Aegina ferry plan raises four plain questions, and each one has a short factual answer. They cover the airport near Athens and the weather in three months. They also cover the regional unit of the Saronic Islands and the Eastern European time zone.

Which airport serves an Aegina ferry?

Athens International Airport stands among Markopoulo, Koropi, Spata and Loutsa, about 20 km out of central Athens. It opened on 28 March 2001. Its runways, the strips where planes take off and land, are 4 km and 3.8 km long. In 2018 the airport counted over 24.1 million passengers.

Which season suits an Aegina ferry?

Rain at the downtown Athens station averages 38.6 mm in October and 27.6 mm in April. At the downtown Athens station, average daily highs are 26.6 °C in April and 29.5 °C in October. The downtown Athens station shows an average daily high of 38.8 °C in July.

Which regional unit holds an Aegina ferry?

A regional unit is an administrative area. The Islands regional unit covers the Saronic Islands, part of the Peloponnese and islands off its eastern coast. It is split into 8 municipalities, or local authorities. The Kallikratis reform of 2011, a government change to local administration, created it.

Which time zone does an Aegina ferry use?

A time zone is a region with one clock time. Greece, Egypt and Libya use the term Eastern European Time. Cairo has the largest population in the zone, and Kyiv does in Europe. By geography alone, the zone spans meridians, imaginary pole-to-pole lines, from 22°30′ E to 37°30′ E.