Νίσυρος The glorious past of the baths

Nisyros - Το ένδοξο παρελθόν των λουτρών

From the small breakwater with the tied boats you will admire the building of the municipal thermal Baths in the position Therma or Loutra, 1 km away from Mandraki. The buildings have brilliant history and they have been characterised as preservable. The facilities we now see were created in three phases (from 1885-1912) with the funding of wealthy residents of Nisyros and with ‘nepetia’ (compulsory labor of the locals for the common good). Then, they had three wards, 300 beds, a restaurant, bath tubs –i.e. a typical bath town where visitors from the Dodecanese, the coasts of Asia Minor and Egypt used to visit. The elder residents still remember the luxury that those who used the baths enjoyed, the spring of which had a temperature of 55 degrees Celsius and therapeutic effect on arthritic diseases, rheumatism, arteriosclerosis etc.

A few kilometers along the road, at Limni, outside the village Pali, there are the ruins of the Roman baths within a rock. At that point Panagia Thermiane was built later on. There, there was an infirmary and an Asclepion, known since the 5th century or earlier. In 1894, after the doctor Hippocrates Pantelidis searched the therapeutic powers of their hot spring, he built the grander building of the bath town which was named “Hippocrates” and operated in 1910. They were advertised in Europe, Egypt and Middle East and they attracted many visitors; for their sake, in fact, three ships would moor in the port of Pali every week. After the death of I.Pantelidis, in 1928, the baths depopulated and in the 80s his grandson made an effort to restore them which was never completed.

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