Baedeker: the 'Skala' with the most important mill

1883 Proven

The German Baedeker guide of 1883 described Myli as a village stretching along the road at the foot of Pontinos. Below the road, near the chapel of Agios Ioannis, a mighty spring broke out. Part of the village, the so-called Skala with the most important mill, lay by the sea, and travellers who crossed from Nafplio by boat landed there.

Note: The same guide places the army's gunpowder factory at Kefalari in 1883, run by a German, so by then powder was apparently no longer made at Myloi.

Read the full story: From spring to pump: how the water of Lerna made Myloi

Where

Myloi (the village), The water mills, The pier and harbour, Springs of Lerna, Pontinos hill and castle

Threads

Travellers, Water and mills, Harbour and pier

Certainty

Proven confirmed by primary sources

Sources

• K. Baedeker, Griechenland. Handbuch für Reisende, Leipzig 1883, p. 252 Open (opens in a new tab)

Also in this period

1. 1839?

   An English book shows the marsh of Lerna

   Christopher Wordsworth's illustrated book on Greece, first published around 1839, includes a wood engraving of the 'Lernæan Marsh': water, plain and mountains, with travellers and a mule in the foreground. It is one of…

   ProbableTravellers

2. 1857

   Carts on the road from Myloi to Tripoli

   By the mid-1850s the road from Tripoli to Myloi could be used by carts. A Tripoli newspaper reported in 1858 that about ten freight carts a day travelled it, carrying goods between the landing place at Myloi and Arcadia.

   ProvenHarbour and pierIndustry and trade

3. 1858

   'A landing-place, with a few poor houses'

   The English scholar W. G. Clark went by boat from Nafplio to Myloi in one hour and twenty minutes, partly rowing and partly sailing. He found 'a landing-place, with a few poor houses about it', a pebble beach, quaking…

   ProvenTravellersHarbour and pierVillage life

4. March 1858

   The village councillor welcomes King Otto and Queen Amalia

   King Otto and Queen Amalia came by steamer from Nafplio to Myloi, where all the villagers met them with local music. The special councillor (ειδικός πάρεδρος) of Myloi, "Mr Loukas", had strewn the streets with myrtle and…

   ProvenRunning the villageIndustry and tradeHarbour and pier