Aegina

Aegina was settled in the Bronze Age, and in the Early Bronze Age Kolonna, a stone-built fortified site, was its most important settlement. By the 7th century BC it was a sea power, and on the authority of the historian Ephorus it is usually said that Pheidon of Argos founded a mint here, making Aegina the first city-state in Europe to issue coins — staters stamped with a sea turtle. Trade rivalry with Athens led to war, and in 431 BC, in the first winter of the Peloponnesian War, Athens expelled the islanders and settled its own colonists. In Roman times a Jewish community built a synagogue whose mosaic floor survives.

Arab raids around 830 drove many people to the mainland, and others retreated inland to found Paleochora, the island's main town through Byzantine and Venetian times. In the 16th century Hayreddin Barbarossa sacked the island, massacred its men and carried off some 6,000 women and children as slaves; Albanians later settled around Perdika and were absorbed into the Greek population. The Venetians returned between 1687 and 1715, and probably built the Tower of Markellos as a watchtower.

From 1827 to 1829 Aegina was officially the provisional first capital of the new Greek state, and Ioannis Kapodistrias, briefly based here, built the orphanage that later served as library, museum and prison. When the capital moved to Nafplio, Aegina declined and its population fell by half. In 1896 the physician Nikolaos Peroglou introduced the systematic growing of pistachios, which by 1950 had displaced most other crops and made the island famous.

Aegina's modern identity rests on three things: its antiquities, its saint and its pistachios. The Temple of Aphaia draws visitors to the east of the island, while the convent of St Nektarios, who is buried there and is one of the most renowned Greek saints, is the island's great pilgrimage site, above all on his feast day, 9 November. Paleochora, known as "the Mystras of Aegina", is the abandoned main town of the Byzantine and Venetian centuries.

The island has long been a holiday retreat for Athenians, and on summer weekends it feels more like a beach suburb of the capital than a remote island. Its history as the first capital of modern Greece is remembered in the statue of Kapodistrias in the main square.

Pistachios are a point of pride: Fistiki Aeginis has had protected status since 1996, and each mid-September the island holds its Fistiki Fest at harvest time. Fishing survives alongside tourism, and Perdika is still a fishing village.

About 7,000 people lived in the community of Aegina town in 2021, and the island as a whole had about 13,000 people at the 2011 census, spread through villages such as Kypseli, Mesagros, Vathy and Perdika. Aegina is roughly triangular, about 15 km across, and the town at its north-western corner is the island's capital, port and shopping centre.

Pistachio is the most characteristic crop of the fertile northern and western plains, which also grow grain, olives, almonds and figs, and half the growers belong to the island's pistachio cooperative. Tourism and the Athenian weekend trade are the other pillars.

Daily life follows the ferry timetable and the seasons. Weekday mornings bring villagers into town on the buses for errands, the fish market and the cafés; summer weekends bring crowds from Piraeus; and in winter the island settles into a quiet routine with fewer sailings. The island's buses are timed for villagers coming into town for essentials and taking them home again.

Aegina's signature is the pistachio. Fistiki Aeginis, protected by name since 1996, is prized for the flavour that the island's dry climate and soil give it, and the nuts are sold in shops in Aegina town. The Fistiki Fest celebrates the nut each September.

The fish market sits in its narrow alley by the harbour, and the town's tavernas and ouzeri serve a spread of meze — taramosalata, tzatziki, grilled octopus and fried saganaki cheese — with ouzo. Perdika, the fishing village in the south-west, is the island's other place for fish by the water, and Agia Marina has a grill selling souvlaki and gyros, grilled meat in pita with onion, tomato and tzatziki.

Home cooking follows the Greek pattern of baked dishes such as moussaka and gemista, stuffed vegetables, horiatiki salad with feta and olives, and pies of greens and cheese in filo. Sweets include loukoumades — fried dough drizzled with honey and cinnamon — and baklava.