Emporios Village | Nisyros, Greece

Emporios is the most interesting village for me on the island of Nisyros. It has been destroyed by an earthquake in 1880 and the residents actually left instead of rebuilding it. At the heyday of Emporios there were more than 3000 people living there and this was the commercial hub of the island, which is kind of hard to believe as it lies on top of a hill and quite a distance from the port were all the goods are coming from.

Residents and businesses slowly started moving back only recently so most of the village is still abandoned, however there are already 2 restaurants and a few places to stay. It is important to mention that the best restaurant of the island it in Emporios. It is called Balkoni and it offers not only great food but a fabulous view over the Stefanos Crater.

If you come by car note that Emporios has 2 entry points with free parking lots. One is at the end of the road that leads to Emporios and the other one is a short detour further up the hill. It worth visiting both entry points and wander around. There is also a secret entry point explained in detail at the bonus section of this article.

Once you are parked at entry point one make sure you check out the Natural sauna first which is just a few steps away on the road towards Mandraki. This is how the inside of the sauna looks like:

Emporios Village Photos:

 

Bonus: I am unsure if I am correct, but when we drove to the Stefanos crater we passed by a few old, destroyed buildings. It turned out that it is Emporios village. It looks like Emporios village was streching  all the way down until the bottom of the hill it was built on. We also took a few photos of that area which looks really deserted and haunted.

Finally a short video on Emporios Village.