Beneath the arid hills surrounding Lavrion lies the silver that paid for Athens' fleet. This port in Attica, about 65 kilometres southeast of the Greek capital, was one of the largest mining centres of the ancient world: its veins financed the victorious triremes of the Persian Wars and the famous silver owls, the currency of the Athenian city-state. Travellers who come ashore here therefore set foot on ground steeped in history, a short distance from one of the most photographed temples in Greece.

A Mining Town on the Aegean

The waterfront lines up fishing caiques and ferries departing for Kea and Kythnos, the first Cyclades offshore. A few streets from the landing, the fish market hall, built in 1885 by the Greek Mining Company, remains the locals' morning meeting place: sea bream and octopus glisten on ice, vendors call out to passersby, and the smell of the sea mingles with that of Greek coffee. Around the main square, tavernas and ouzo bars serve meze with the catch of the day; it's hard to find a more local atmosphere. The neighbouring streets preserve 19th-century bourgeois homes and industrial buildings, witnesses to the era when the French and Greek mining companies made the town a prosperous workers' city.

The Memory of Silver

Those curious about industrial history find a rare field of exploration here. The Mineralogical Museum, housed in the last building of a large steam-powered ore-washing plant dating from 1873, displays crystals of astonishing variety, including some specimens unique in the world. The Technological and Cultural Park, for its part, occupies the former facilities of the French Mining Company, a fine example of restored industrial architecture. On the outskirts of town, the ancient theatre of Thorikos and the remains of the washeries where ore was processed twenty-five centuries ago are a reminder that mining began here in the earliest days of antiquity, long before the Classical age.

Cape Sounion and the Temple of Poseidon

The crowning excursion, however, remains Cape Sounion, eight to ten kilometres to the south. On this windswept promontory, the Temple of Poseidon raises its columns of white marble quarried at nearby Agrileza. Built between 444 and 440 BCE, in the age of Pericles, it served as a landmark for sailors returning to Athens; today it salutes the ships sailing offshore. From the sanctuary's terrace, the Aegean Sea stretches as far as the eye can see, dotted with islands and white sails. Its sunsets are renowned throughout Greece, but the morning light, softer and free of crowds, delights photographers just as much.

Athens as an Option

Some passengers take advantage of the port call to head to the capital and its Acropolis. The trip, however, takes a good hour by road each way: it's best to keep this option for long days in port. Those who stay in the area gain an unhurried day, between ancient marble, meze and taverna conversations, with the feeling of having seen a Greece that works rather than a Greece that poses.

Heading back to the gangway, cast one last look at the hills riddled with tunnels. Generations of miners extracted the wealth of an entire civilization from them. Lavrion doesn't try to seduce; it tells, with the frankness of a former workers' town, how the silver beneath its soil changed the course of history, and that lesson is worth as much as many monuments.