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PIREAS has been the port of Athens since Classical times. Today it is a substantial metropolis in its own right, containing much of Greater Athens' industry, as well as the various commercial activities associated with a port: banking, import-export, freight and so on. For most visitors, though, it is Pireas's inter-island ferries that provide the reason for coming. The port at Pireas was founded at the beginning of the fifth century BC by Themistocles , who realized the potential of its three natural harbours. His work was consolidated by Pericles with the building of the " Long Walls " to protect the corridor to Athens, and it remained active under Roman and Macedonian rulers. Subsequently, under Turkish rule, the place declined to the extent that there was just one building there, a monastery, by the end of the War of Independence. From the 1830s on, though, Pireas grew by leaps and bounds. The original influx into the port was a group of immigrants from Hios, whose island had been devastated by the Turks; later came populations from Idhra, Crete and the Peloponnese. By World War I, Pireas had outstripped the island of Syros as the nation's first port, its strategic position enhanced by the opening of the Suez and Corinth canals in 1862 and 1893 respectively. Like Athens, the city's great period of expansion began in 1923, with the exchange of populations with Turkey. Over 100,000 Asia Minor Greeks decided to settle in Pireas, doubling the population almost overnight - and giving a boost to a pre-existing semi-underworld culture, whose enduring legacy was rebetika, outcasts' music played in hashish dens along the waterside. The city these days is almost indistinguishable from Athens, with its scruffy web of suburbs merging into those of the capital. Economically, it is at present on a mild upswing, boosted by two successive go-ahead mayors and the prominence of its late MP, former actress and Minister of Culture, Melina Mercouri. An unashamedly functional place, with its port dispatching up to sixty ships a day in season - both to the islands and to a range of international destinations - there are few sights beyond the numbers and diversity of the sailors in the harbour. The ancient walls are long gone - except for small sections on the seafront - and the junta years saw misguided demolition of many buildings of character. On the plus side, there's a nice enough park (three blocks back from the main harbour, intersected by Vas. Konstandinou); a scattering of genuine antique/junk shops, plus a big Sunday morning flea market , near Platia Ipodhamias, at the top end of Gounari (behind the train station); and a couple of more than respectable museums.
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