Pothia

Pothia (also spelled Pothaia) is the capital and main port of the island of Kalymnos in the Dodecanese, built around a sheltered bay on the island's southern coast. The town is a relatively recent settlement: it was founded only around 1850, once declining piracy in the Aegean allowed islanders to abandon the fortified hill village of Chorio further inland and move down to the coast. Under Italian administration in the early 20th century the town gained much of its Venetian-style architecture, and today it is by far the largest settlement on Kalymnos, with 13,529 residents recorded in the 2021 census — a scale unusual for a Dodecanese port town.

Tiered whitewashed houses and narrow lanes climb the hillside around the harbour, and the waterfront is dominated by the 19th-century Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ with its marble sculptures, while the ruined Pera Castle, built inland by the Knights Hospitaller, overlooks the bay from above. The town's Naval Museum documents the island's long tradition of sponge fishing and seafaring, a trade that shaped the port for generations, and the well-protected anchorage close to the town centre makes Pothia worth a visit if you're chartering a gulet in Greece in the eastern Aegean.