Varvakios Central Municipal Market
Bustling covered fish, meat and produce halls funded by a Greek pirate turned caviar baron.
This guide to the Varvakios Central Municipal Market in Athens traces the story of Ioannis Varvakis, a Greek sailor whose reckless fire-ship attack at the Battle of Chesma in 1770 caught the attention of Russia's Catherine the Great and won him exclusive fishing rights across the Caspian Sea. It follows how he turned those rights into a caviar fortune, and how his will, on his death on Zakynthos in 1825, sent that money back to Athens to fund a school and this market beside it. From there it turns to the market's own rocky construction through the 1880s, including a fire that struck the halls before they ever opened.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.