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Modern Description: ANGISTRI makes a delightful excursion from Aegina, although it can also be reached directly from Piraeus. The island is a hilly protrusion on the Aegina shelf, separated from the main island by subsidence. The shallow waters and sandy sea-bed between Angistri and its own offshore islets of Metope (to the north) and Dorousa (to the south), mean that the sea is of a limpid, tourquoise colour. The island's mantle of pines has survived well, and its beaches are attractive.
In the waters, 5 km to its west, lies the uninhabited island of Kekryphaleia, where according to Thucydides (I, 105), the Athenians prevailed over a Peloponnesian fleet in a sea battle in the early 450s BC. Pliny (Nat. Hist., IV 12.57) gives Angistri the name Pityonesos (‘island of pines'). The current name, Άγκίστρι, means a ‘fish-hook'. Throughout its history, which has closely followed the vicissitudes of Aegina on which it has always depended, Angistri has been alternately inhabited and deserted in different periods. The ancestors of the present inhabitants are mostly Albanian Christian settlers from Northern Greece. In the late Middle Ages they fled Serbian incursions to settle in the Peloponnese. They subsequently came from there to the islands in the Saronic Gulf seeking refuge from Turkish dominion in the Morea.
(JBK) Kyra island has one small, sheltered beach on its SE coast. On the hillside above it, next to a chapel of Agioi Theodori, an ancient threshold block and ample pottery (one obsidian flake) and rooftile suggest an ancient maritime sanctuary. Above, a partly built cave/tomb.
Metopi island off Angistri, has pottery scatter suggesting occupation in late Roman times and presumably before.
Wikidata ID: Q15711305
Trismegistos Geo: 60750

Info: McGilchrist's Greek Islands

(From McGilchrist’s Greek Islands, © Nigel McGilchrist 2010, excerpted with his gracious permission. Click for the books)

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