The old village

Until 1968 Ai Stratis lived on the hill above the harbour, in some 500 stone houses of two and three storeys with wooden porches. After the earthquake of February 1968 the military government declared the village unfit to live in and moved everyone to the new village in the valley. Most of the old houses were pulled down; the ones that survived still stand above the quay among the ruins and the paths cleared around 2009. Here too stood the church of the Five Martyrs and Agios Efstratios, demolished after the quake: when the site was dug, it turned out to stand on an ancient temple, with column bases, an altar made of two Corinthian capitals and traces of mosaic, and it has not been rebuilt.