PANAGIA DISTRICT

This district (Παναγιά) is beautiful and hard to miss. It stretches over 700 m in length on the peninsula east of the port. And if you're coming from inside the city, just follow the aqueduct that leads to it. This is where the city has been concentrated for centuries: Neapolis and its acropolis, Christopolis and its Byzantine ramparts, then the residences of the Ottoman elite. The name Panagia ("Holiest of All Saints") is directly inherited from the goddess Pantheos ("All Gods"), protector of the ancient city, who had her temple here in white Thassos marble. Today, it's a beautiful group of old houses dating back to the ^18th and ^19th centuries. At the top, on the ancient acropolis, the narrow fortress of Kavala towers 64 m above sea level. Rebuilt by the Ottomans after the city was taken in 1387, it stretches 449 m like a spire, bristling with crenellated walls. Below, the red walls of the Halil-Bey mosque (c. 1530) await you. It has lost its minaret but retains the pavement of a Byzantine church visible under a glass floor. To the west, the prestigious Hotel Imaret occupies a former Islamic hospice (1821) whose construction was financed by Mehemet Ali from Egypt. The superb birthplace and equestrian statue of Kavala's most famous figure occupy the southern part, near the yellow-walled Kimisi tis Theotokou church (1957). Finish at sunset on the southern tip, at the small Panagia lighthouse (1864).