Volos

Volos stands on the sites of three ancient cities. Iolcos, on the mound of Kastro/Palaia in the west of the city, was a Bronze Age settlement with a Mycenaean palace, and in myth the home of Jason, who sailed from here in the Argo to find the Golden Fleece. Demetrias was founded in 293 BC by Demetrius Poliorcetes, King of Macedon, and Pagasae gave its name to the gulf. Just inland lie the Neolithic villages of Dimini and Sesklo, the latter with the oldest acropolis in Greece.

The town reappears in 1333 as Golos, a name probably of Slavic origin, captured by the Byzantine general John Monomachos. Serbian rulers held it from 1348, and the Ottomans took it definitively in 1423, fortifying it and settling Muslims from Anatolia while the Christians moved up to the villages of Pelion. Volos became the chief port of the Pagasetic Gulf, with a famous twice-weekly fair; Venice briefly captured the fortress in 1665, Pelion rebels failed to take it in 1821, and a Greek fleet under Frank Abney Hastings forced its garrison out in 1827.

Volos joined Greece with the rest of Thessaly in 1881, when it had only 4,900 people, and grew quickly as merchants, craftsmen and sailors arrived; the new port opened in 1893. Refugees from Ionia, Pontus, Cappadocia and Eastern Thrace followed in the 1920s. During the Second World War about 700 of the city's Jews were saved from deportation by the rabbi Moshe Pesach and the Greek authorities. The earthquakes of 1955 destroyed much of the old city, which was rebuilt in modern style, and in September 2023 Storm Daniel flooded it.

Volos was shaped by industry and by the refugees who arrived after 1922, whose presence left a mark still visible in the city's food, music, sport and social life. The first labour union in Greece was founded here in 1908, and the Municipal Theatre dates from 1894; renovated and named after the composer Vangelis, who was born in neighbouring Agria, it reopened at Christmas 2023. The painter Giorgio de Chirico was born in Volos, and his father, Evaristo de Chirico, designed the railway station.

Myth is close at hand: Pelion, behind the city, is the mountain of the centaurs and of Chiron, and the port stands on the site of Iolcos, where Jason built the Argo. The University of Thessaly, founded in 1984, gives the city a large student population and draws many foreign students through Erasmus. Volos was a candidate for European Capital of Culture in 2021 and was one of the five cities that hosted events of the 2004 Olympics.

Sport runs deep: the city has a long history in rowing, sailing, swimming and water polo, and its best-known football clubs are Olympiacos Volos and Niki Volos. Above all, though, local identity is bound up with the tsipouradiko, where friends gather over small bottles of tsipouro and plates of seafood.

The city had 85,803 people at the 2021 census, about 86,000, and is the capital of the Magnesia regional unit. Its municipality reaches from Nea Anchialos to Agria and up the slopes of Pelion to Makrinitsa and Portaria.

Volos is one of the most industrialised provincial cities in Greece, thanks to its port and its position between Athens and Thessaloniki. Steel producers have plants in the industrial zones of Volos and nearby Almyros, and a very large cement works with its own port stands next to the city. The port is the third-largest cargo port in Greece, handling the farm and factory products of Thessaly, and it also serves ferries to the Sporades and cruise ships. The university, a research institute for agri-technology and tourism add to the economy.

Life is lived outdoors. The waterfront fills with walkers on fine days, the pedestrian streets around Ermou Street are lined with cafés, and in summer people head for the beaches at Alykes, Agria and along Pelion. The floods of September 2023 caused heavy damage in the city and across Thessaly, and the railway to Larissa still had no regular trains in 2026, with replacement buses running in their place.

Volos is best known for tsipouro, a strong, un-aged brandy of 40 to 45 per cent alcohol distilled from grape pomace, and for the seafood that comes with it. In a tsipouradiko small bottles of tsipouro arrive with plates of seafood meze. The refugees from Asia Minor who settled here after 1922 left a lasting mark on the city's food, and the tsipouradiko remains at the centre of its social life.

Local specialities include spetzofai, country sausages in a sauce of peppers and tomato, boubari, the dessert melachrini and spoon sweets. Pelion adds its orchard fruit, above all the firiki, a small, fragrant and slightly tart apple.

The tavernas also offer the dishes of everyday Greek cooking, many prepared earlier in the day and kept warm in large trays, from baked moussaka to gemista, stuffed vegetables. A weekly food market on Fridays brings in produce from the plain and the mountain, and fast-food grills serve souvlaki and gyros all day long.