Port of Piraeus
Where Themistocles turned a rocky island into the navy base that stopped Persia — now run by China's COSCO Shipping.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Athens offline.
In 493 BC Themistocles began fortifying this natural harbour; by 479 BC the Themistoclean Walls were complete and the Athenian fleet that defeated the Persians at Salamis in 480 BC made it their permanent base. That same geography — three natural harbour basins carved from what was once an island — now underpins Greece's largest port and one of Europe's biggest, under a COSCO lease running through 2052.
What to look for
- The three original harbour basins: the main Cantharus and the two smaller Zea and Munichia, whose shapes predate the city they served
- The peninsula itself — Piraeus was a rocky island until natural silting around the 3rd millennium BC permanently joined it to Attica
- The scale of COSCO's container operations, making visible why this port is one of the largest in Europe and a major employer across the region
Greece's largest port on the Saronic Gulf and the chief sea gateway in and out of Athens; operated by Chinese state-owned COSCO Shipping under a concession ending in 2052.
Port of Piraeus is one of 36 sights worth the detour in Athens, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Athens pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Athens
- ParthenonA temple built to celebrate a war victory that went on to become a church, a mosque, and a gunpowder depot — blown apart in 1687 and still being reassembled.
- Acropolis of AthensA flat-topped rock 150 m above the city where Pericles spent the 5th century BC erecting the buildings that still define Athens.
- Platonic Academy (Akadimia Platonos)Aristotle studied here for twenty years before leaving to found his own school — and the word "academy" has followed ever since.
- Classical AthensDemocracy was invented here in 508 BC — and it took a bribe at Delphi to get it started.
- Olympic Stadium Athens "Spyros Louis"Santiago Calatrava's white steel roof arches over the same track where Athens opened the 2004 Olympics — and hosted three Champions League finals.
- ErechtheionThe one Greek temple that broke every rule of classical architecture — and scholars still can't agree on what it was actually called.