Leros – Aghia Marina and the north of the island – Aghia Marina

Aghia Marina
More fine neoclassical mansions with walled gardens may be glimpsed from the road between the museum and the shore at Aghia Marina, whose handsome water front stretches from the ruined structures of Bourtzi at the eastern end to the Italian Customs House (still bearing its ceramic plate, ‘Regia Dogana’) and Police Building, both by Rodolfo Petracco (1934/5), and then on past a number of colourful waterside houses in more vernacular style as far as the picturesque, almost submerged, wind mill at the bay’s western extremity. The town is pleasingly unpretentious and has a number of good shops selling local produce and breads. Today the eastern promontory of Bourtzi is marked by the ruins of a mediaeval coastal fortress, whose series of curiously low wide-arched apertures overlooking the outer entrance to the bay seem hard to explain in defensive terms. The slopes above have been the site of continual settlement on Leros from the Geometric period through to the Middle Ages, as shown by the density of pottery finds of all periods in the area. During maintenance works by the municipality, walls have also been uncovered going down to the level of Ro man mosaic floors. Little is to be seen superficially but near the small church of Aghia Barbara, which is higher up on the slopes to the southeast and is apparently built over Ancient and Early Christian remains, there survives the stepped, semicircular structure of a synthronon.