Aegina
— — the pistachio island that was Greece's first capital.
Not only on a wall.
“A small Saronic Gulf island about an hour by ferry from Piraeus. Aegina served as the first capital of independent Greece from 1827 to 1829. The Temple of Aphaia on the eastern ridge has stood since around 500 BC. The island is known across Greece for its pistachios; bagged sacks sit in the windows of every shop along the harbour in Aegina Town.
Aegina, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Aegina lies in the Saronic Gulf, about twenty-seven kilometres southwest of Piraeus, the port of Athens. The island covers roughly 87 square kilometres and is home to around 13,000 people. From 1827 to 1829 Aegina served as the first capital of the modern Greek state under Ioannis Kapodistrias, whose government house still stands in the main town. The Temple of Aphaia, built around 500 BC on the eastern ridge, forms a near-equilateral triangle with the Parthenon and the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion, a geometry first noted in nineteenth-century surveys.
The Temple of Aphaia is one of the most complete late Archaic Doric temples surviving in Greece, with twenty-four of its thirty-two original columns still standing. It was built around 500 BC on the foundations of an earlier sanctuary. The pediment sculptures were removed in 1811 by Bavarian agents and now sit in the Munich Glyptothek, a loss the small site museum notes plainly in its labelling. The temple stands on a pine-covered hill above the village of Agia Marina, with a long view east across the Saronic Gulf toward the Peloponnese.
Ferries run from Piraeus several times a day; the regular ferry takes about seventy-five minutes, the high-speed Flying Dolphin about forty. Aegina Town's harbour is lined with fish tavernas, pistachio shops, and the small pink building that served as the Kapodistrias government house. Buses cross the island to Agia Marina, Perdika, and the Temple of Aphaia. The island fills with Athenians on summer weekends; weekdays and the shoulder months of May and September are quieter. The pistachio harvest runs from late August into September.