Lavrio Things to Do

4 more images

We didn’t spend much time on Lavrio, the main road is lined with the stores and numerous café and restaurants, typical as in many greek sea towns.

It’s weird to know this was a glorious rich city in Ancient Greece but now is in decadence trying to survive. It’s just a small town that is built around the harbor facing the island Makronisos (isle of Helen in ancient Greece) an uninhabited island that is unfamous as a place of imprisonment for greek communists after the greek civil war (1949) until 1973.

We bought some desserts but then we headed near the port to see the marina and the boats. We passed by the Town Hall (pic 2) but walking near the boats (pic 3) and taking photos of the palm trees was the best thing we did before we choose a table near waterfront and enjoy our coffee. We also took some picture from a distance when we drove up to Agios Konstantinos and we could see Lavrio in the distance (pic 5)

4 more images

Just outsisde of Lavrio, going toward the electrical power plant, you will see on the north slope of a hill beside the highway going to Athens, 'Lavriou,' an amphitheatre. This is the oldest theatre in Greece...over 3,000 years old. It is called Thoriko.

1 more image

The tunnels and shafts dug to reach the layers of minerals in the ancient mines, created massive amounts of debris near the mine entrances. It is possible, to this day, to find a large variety of minerals quite easily. Despite the highly developed metallurgical techniques in the factories, the remnants of which are very well preserved in Lavrion , the Ancient Greeks could not take out all the silver from the ore and after smelting used to dump the slag into the sea. The sea water, which contained minerals penetrated into the slag for thousands of years and reacted with other trace elements. This chemical reaction resulted in the growth of perfect crystals of various minerals , some of which are very rare and exist only in Lavrion. In the winter, when the heavy seas deposit these crystals on the beaches, many collectors come to Lavrion to find them.

The Society of Studies of the Lavrion Region founded the Mineralogical Museum of Lavrion, which was inaugurated in September 1986, with the aim of highlighting one of the most important aspects of the region's natural wealth. The Museum is dedicated to the memory of A. Kordellas (1836-1909), the major contributor to the revival of modern-day Lavrion.

The Lavrion area is one of the most favoured sites in the world from the point of view of its variety of minerals, and samples of its minerals are displayed in the greatest Natural History Museums.

The Mineralogical Museum of Lavrion is housed in a small but noteworthy example of the industrial architecture of the 19th century (1873), in the remains of the important metal-washing plant of the Greek Society. In the Museum's showcases are exhibited approximately 700 samples of 115 different kinds of metals, classified according to the norms of mineralogical science (DANA 1850), into the following categories: sulphides, sulphates, native elements, halogens, limes, oxides-hydroxides, arsenides, vanadiums. There are also special showcases with gangue and other minerals and with samples of various crystals.

Some of the exhibits are exceedingly rare (annabergites, serpierites, spangolites, laventulanites, etc.), while others are particularly beautiful specimens (azurite, adamsite, smithsonite, etc.). There are also rare specimens of the famous "slag minerals".

In addition to the minerals exhibited, one can also see objects related to the extraction and refining of metals (lead ingots, slag cones, lead monoxides, types of lead and slag, digging implements and lamps, apparatus used for the transportation of metals, A. Kordellas walking stick, etc.).