Threads
Village life
Population, school, church, food and festivals.
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1347
A priest for the castle: the will of Gautier de Brienne
In his will of 1347, Gautier VI de Brienne, Lord of Argos and Nauplia and titular Duke of Athens, names his castle of Chamires. He left sixty hyperpyra a year, from the rent of a cloth shop in Argos, for a priest who had…
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1696
1696: 42 souls in 11 houses
A Venetian church census of 1696 counts 42 people, all locals, in 11 houses at "Kiveri". In Venetian papers this name usually means the part of Kiveri facing Nafplio, the later Myloi, but the identification is not…
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1700
1700: ten families and nine working mills
The Venetian land register of Argos, made for governor Francesco Grimani in 1700, lists for "Civeri": 7 local and 3 newly settled families, one Greek church, 12 state houses, 20 ruined houses and 9 working water mills.…
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1704
'Molini': the village appears under its own name
In his description of the Peloponnese, printed in Venice in 1704, P. A. Pacifico lists the 29 villages of the territory of Argos. Next to 'Civeri' he names a separate village 'Molini', the Mills. This is the oldest known…
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1804–1806
Gell: the lake has become a mill dam
The English topographer William Gell, who travelled the Morea in 1804–1806, wrote that the ancient Alcyonian lake 'is now become a species of mill dam', turning mills 'which give the name of Myli to the spot'. 'There are…
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1806
A khan below the Amymone spring
'Just below the fountain Amymone is a khan,' Leake noted, an inn for travellers; beyond it a road to Achladokampos branched off to the right, passing another, ruined khan. Further south he passed Kiveri, a hamlet of six…
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c. 1815
Pouqueville: about thirty houses at the foot of Pontinos
The French consul and traveller François Pouqueville arrived after sunset and, once someone had fetched the key, spent the night in the khan on bare planks, plagued by mosquitoes. 'Lerna or Milos', he wrote, consisted of…
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24 June 1825
Women and children taken aboard a French ship
On the evening before the battle, Admiral de Rigny, at anchor in the roadstead of the mills, took the women and children of the place on board his ship. After the fighting he sent rum to the Greek defenders.
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3 October 1827
Medicine against fever requested at Myloi
Captain Konstantis Veris, who held Myloi with his soldiers, asked Ioannis Kolettis to send medicine against 'the fever'. The marshes of Lerna made malaria a constant danger for anyone stationed at the mills.
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1829
1829: 61 families, 181 people
The French scientific expedition to the Morea counted "Myli" in the province of Argos at 61 families and 181 people. The expedition noted that the war had sharply reduced the population of the area, but that it was now…
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1831
Work begins on the road from Tripoli to Myloi
Under Kapodistrias work began on a road from Tripoli over the mountains down to Myloi, the nearest landing place for Arcadia. It took almost thirty years to finish.
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30 May 1831
American sailors find 'a little collection of huts'
Officers of the American frigate USS Constellation visited Lerna. Enoch Wines wrote that the water from the spring was led away in a canal and turned a few mills, which gave the name Mylos to a little group of huts built…
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4 November 1840
A town hall in Myloi
A notice in the Athens paper Athina announces an auction "in Myloi of the municipality of Temenion, in front of the town hall". A year later a court paper mentions "the café in Myloi of the municipality of Temenion". So…
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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…
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1864
The first known priest and teacher of Myloi
A report of 1864 mentions a priest who had served the villages of Myloi and Skafidaki until the feast of Saint George that year, and who had earlier been the teacher of the same villages. So Myloi already had some form…
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April 1864 – May 1864
Robbers carry off the village councillor
At nightfall a band of more than twelve robbers raided "the village of Myloi of the municipality of Argos". They robbed the councillor (πάρεδρος) Loukas Giannakopoulos and led him bound as far as the bridge of the…
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19 October 1878
Prices set for the state land around Myloi
Much of the land around Myloi was still 'national land', former Ottoman property that had passed to the Greek state. Under the law for distributing it to farmers, the cabinet set its price per stremma at Myloi: 60 to 100…
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1879
1879: 135 inhabitants, part of the municipality of Argos
The census of 1879 counts 135 people in Myloi: 78 men and 57 women. The village then belonged to the municipality of Argos (Δήμος Αργείων), together with Kiveri and Skafidaki. The surplus of men fits a village of…
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3 September 1883
A state grant for the school of Myloi
A royal decree on grants to municipalities for primary education gave Myloi, in the municipality of Argos, 10 drachmas a month 'for the grammar school' (grammatoscholeio), a small school where children learned to read…
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11 January 1886
The schoolmaster of Myloi is paid by the state
A new decree on school grants again gave Myloi 10 drachmas a month, now 'for the schoolmaster' (grammatodidaskalos). Together with earlier reports, it shows that the village kept a small school of its own in the years…
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15 April 1888
Myloi gets its own post office
A 'Post Office of Myloi' was set up in the village. The mail for Tripoli now came by train as far as Myloi, and the paper expected Myloi to become the centre of 'numerous engineers, contractors and workers' once building…
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23 March 1889
Ten extra gendarmes for Myloi
At the request of the mayor of Argos, the gendarmerie of Argolis reinforced its post at Myloi with ten men. With hundreds of railway workers arriving, the paper called it 'an excellent measure for public order'.
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24 March 1889
Workers of every nation, and 'famous cutlets'
'Workers of various nationalities pour in there every day,' wrote a correspondent about the building site of the Myloi–Kalamata line. A good restaurant had been built: 'In Myloi-Lerna you can taste famous cutlets.' He…
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17 June 1889
Railway workers without work and in debt
The big contractors kept re-letting sections to small sub-contractors, and workers offered themselves for 80 lepta a day. Many sat without work and without a penny, in debt to every shop on the site. Grocers and…
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30 July 1889
Boomtown Myloi: holidays, wine and brawls
'It is a fine sight,' wrote the Nafplio paper: from Myloi to Tripoli crowds of workers of every nationality and language, and carts bringing rails and sleepers. But on holidays and days off this whole crowd gathered in…
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6 July 1891
Stowaways on the royal train, and a flask of wine for the king
First the train with the invited guests left Myloi and was the first to run the whole line to Tripoli. When the royal train followed, uninvited locals climbed onto the wagons and into the luggage van to ride along; the…
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1893
A bathing train from Argos to the sea at Myloi
In the summer of 1893 the people of Argos asked for a special bathing train. They wanted to swim at 'Almyro', 'only five minutes from Myloi station'. The train to Myloi was also becoming a train to the sea.
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4 April 1900
'Silting made the pier useless': the extension is dropped
Introducing the bill, Prime Minister Theotokis told parliament that the bottom of the bay and the silting at Myloi made a longer pier useless. He added that the place was so unhealthy that, although the railway had come…
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January 1911
Paraschos Pagkas, the village schoolmaster
Two newspapers of January 1911 call Paraschos Pagkas "the learned schoolmaster of Myloi". He is the first teacher known by name who certainly taught in the village.
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13 January 1927
'Skala': Myloi as the landing place of Tripoli
An Athens paper described Myloi as a village on the railway to Tripoli, 'well-watered, full of trees and pleasant', with tall eucalyptus trees along the beach where the boats lay. Besides its name from the many water…
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March 1927 – April 1927
The priest of Myloi dies, and America hears of it
A letter "from Argos, 3 April 1927", written for the people of Argos in America, reports the sudden death of the priest Christos Nikolaou Giannakopoulos "from the village of Myloi of Lerna". All the people of Myloi,…
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17 April 1927
A café-restaurant by the sea
An advertisement announces the "café-restaurant of Stylianos Balaskas in Myloi", opened by the sea in the premises that used to belong to Georgios Koutouzos, promising "care, cleanliness, low prices".
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December 1927
"Kalamaki of Kiveri"
A notice of December 1927 reports that a man "from Kalamaki of Kiveri" who had just died left 300 drachmas in his will to the Argos association "Danaos". It shows that Kalamaki then still counted as part of Kiveri, not…
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15 December 1927
The parish of Agios Dimitrios sells its pastures
The parish committee of the church of Agios Dimitrios in Myloi announces the public sale of two pieces of church pasture near Skafidaki, about 50 and 8 stremmata. The notice is signed by Petros Kodelas, D. Georgopoulos…
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1929–1938
Weddings across the mountains
The Kynouria papers announce at least four engagements between men from Myloi and women from Vervena and nearby Xiropigado in 1929, 1931 and 1938. They are the human side of the yearly winter migration from the mountains…
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14 November 1929
Winter quarters for the shepherds of Vervena
Every autumn the people of Vervena, a mountain village in Kynouria at about 1,200 metres, left home for warmer winter villages with their flocks. A correspondent from Vervena lists them in 1929: among them Kiveri, Myloi,…
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16 October 1940
Census 1940: Myloi 388, Kalamaki 50
Shortly before Greece entered the war, the census counts 438 people in the community of Myloi: 388 in the village and 50 in Kalamaki (29 men and 21 women). Since 1879 the village had almost tripled in size.
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16 October 1940
Kalamaki becomes an official settlement of Myloi
In the census of 16 October 1940 Kalamaki (officially Καλαμάκιον) is listed for the first time as a separate settlement and attached to the community of Myloi. The name itself is older: emigrants of 1911 gave…
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31 January 1947
Reforestation order lifted for land at Profitis Ilias
The Government Gazette of 31 January 1947 lifted the reforestation status of 9 stremmata (about 0.9 hectares) at the place 'Profitis Ilias' of Myloi near Argos. The boundaries named in the decision are fields, an olive…
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1950–1969
Souvlaki passed up to the train windows
Because so many trains stopped at the junction of Myloi, the village became known for souvlaki. Sellers walked along the carriages with trays of skewers and passed them up to passengers at the open windows; a magazine…
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1950s
A rural doctor for three years
Evangelos Koligliatis, born in Ira near Argos in 1922, served three years as rural doctor in Myloi in the 1950s, after two years in Filiates (Thesprotia). He later became a physician at the hospital of Argos.
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1950s
A birth among the sheepfolds above Kalamaki
In an interview recorded in 1988, the old midwife of Kiveri remembered a birth "above Kalamaki, up at the sheepfolds". Afterwards the husband had to walk to the road and on to Myloi to call the doctor: there were…
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7 April 1951
Census 1951: Kalamaki suddenly has 206 people
After the war and the civil war the community of Myloi has 639 inhabitants: 433 in Myloi and 206 in Kalamaki, four times as many as in 1940. The cause is not known; possibly families settled there temporarily, or the…
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1954
Forty people on the dig, the staff living in Myloi
In 1954 the team photographed itself: some forty people, archaeologists and workmen, many of them probably from the village. That season the staff lodged in Myloi, among them the field architect Lloyd Cotsen and the…
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December 1955
A model cheese dairy in Myloi
The Argos paper Aspis praises "the energetic businessman in Myloi, Mr Chr. Koutouzos", who has founded a model cheese dairy, "an ornament of Myloi" and the only cheese-making centre of its kind.
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22 November 1956
Vervena still winters "as far as Myloi"
In 1956 a letter "from wintry Vervena" says that all its people have again settled in their winter quarters, "from Karakovouni, Meligou and Astros as far as Myloi of Argos and Skafidaki". The writer complains that the…
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1957
Land around the site is expropriated
The records of the American School contain a 1957 file of documents about land expropriations at Lerna, which bordered the fields and orchards of Myloi. The file has not yet been studied, so the owners and the…
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13 October 1957 – 10 November 1957
A newspaper series on the first ice factory
Between 13 October and 10 November 1957 the Argos weekly Άσπις του Άργους printed four instalments of A. P. Tsakopoulos's "Historical notes: the first ice factory of Myloi–Lerna". Written partly from memory, it is the…
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12 February 1958 – 22 June 1958
The ice factory «Η Λέρνη» runs into debt
On 12 February 1958 the "cold industry of Myloi «Η Λέρνη»" announced that it would start paying its creditors in June, and in May Vasileiou called thirteen creditors to a meeting at the factory on 22 June 1958. Work…
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August 1958
Demosthenis Ntroulias, priest of Myloi
In August 1958 the Aspis of Argos names Demosthenis Ntroulias as the priest of Myloi. How long he served is not yet known.
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1960–2010
Grill houses for travellers at the junction
On the old national road, where cars and the KTEL buses stopped at the junction before the long climb towards Tripoli, a row of grill houses fed drivers and passengers. In 1963 a newspaper already described the summer…
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19 March 1961
Census 1961: Myloi 503, Kalamaki 170
The census of 1961 counts 673 people in the community: 503 in Myloi and 170 in Kalamaki. Myloi passes 500 inhabitants for the first time.
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1962
Headmistress Maria Pagkalou and the battle monument
In 1962 the Aspis of Argos praises the "progressive headmistress of the primary school of Myloi", Maria Pagkalou, for what she achieved within a few months together with the community committee. A later article says the…
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14 November 1963
An Athens paper visits the president and his council
The evening paper Vradyni publishes a report on Myloi and its wishes: a longer harbour, the coastal road to Nafplio, a community office, a doctor's surgery and a museum. It names the council: Chr. Papagiannis…
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1966
A man from Myloi meets Mitterrand in Paris
In 1966 Dimitrios Kotsonaros from Myloi, then 23, did his military service at a NATO office in Paris because he spoke French. Through friends he met the politician François Mitterrand, and they stayed friends for…
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3 February 1967
Spyros Meletzis photographs the spring of Amymone
The magazine ΑΛΦΑ of 3 February 1967 carried a long report on the Argolid, "Η αρχόντισσα του Αργολικού", with text by Nikos Karantinos and photographs by Spyros Meletzis. Among them is the spring of Amymone at Myloi; the…
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1968
An aerial photo of Lerna and Myloi
Very probably in June 1968 the Jesuit photographer Raymond V. Schoder flew over the gulf and photographed Lerna and Myloi from the east: the shelter over the House of the Tiles, the village, the railway and the orchards.
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12 January 1970
An airman from Myloi dies on Mount Kithairon
A Dakota of the Greek air force, on a training drop of paratroopers from Elefsina, hit Mount Kithairon in bad weather near Villia; 23 men died. Among them was flight sergeant Ilias Psomadakis "from Myloi of Argolida",…
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14 March 1971
Census 1971: Kougeika appears
In 1971 the community of Myloi has 675 inhabitants: 466 in Myloi, 171 in Kalamaki and 38 in Kougeika, which is recognised as a settlement in this census. Myloi itself shrank a little, as many Greek villages did in these…
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22 August 1977
Georgios Koromichis and the new water supply
As president of the community, Georgios Koromichis signs the tender for the water supply of Myloi (1.5 million drachmas). He also led the founding of a kindergarten in 1980. In 1981 he wrote of "eight years of our…
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20 July 1979
Souvlaki sellers at the train, photographed
On 20 July 1979 the Danish railway photographer Ole Holbech travelled the line through Myloi and photographed a souvlaki seller holding up his tray to passengers at the windows of a railcar.
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5 April 1981
Census 1981: Myloi 542
The census of 1981 counts 698 people in the community: 542 in Myloi, 123 in Kalamaki and 33 in Kougeika. The village grows again while Kalamaki slowly empties.
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March 1986 – April 1986
A graveyard of steam locomotives
In the spring of 1986 a visitor photographed rows of withdrawn metre-gauge steam locomotives standing at Myloi station. The station, once a busy junction, had become a resting place for engines the railway no longer…
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23 December 1991
President Mitterrand arrives for Christmas
On the evening of 23 December 1991 a French government plane landed at Kalamata at 20:39, and a few hire cars drove through the night to Myloi. François Mitterrand had chosen the simple village house of his friend…
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24 December 1991
Christmas Eve in Epidaurus, Lygourio and Nafplio
On 24 December Mitterrand visited the theatre of Epidaurus and lunched at the taverna Leonidas in Lygourio, where he liked the local rozakia best and posed for a photo with the family. In the afternoon he walked through…
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25 December 1991
The day the Soviet Union ended, seen from Myloi
On Christmas Day the press blocked the road to Mycenae, so Mitterrand stayed in Myloi. That day Mikhail Gorbachev resigned in Moscow, and the French president read a statement over the satellite link set up in a small…
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26 December 1991
Corinth, the theatre of Argos and dinner in Malantreni
On 26 December Mitterrand visited Ancient Corinth and Acrocorinth, then the rock-cut theatre of Argos, which he called a masterpiece and regretted to see so neglected. Back in Myloi he received local officials, and the…
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27 December 1991
Mitterrand leaves, with a gift for Argos
On 27 December 1991 at 16:29 Mitterrand flew from Kalamata back to Paris. He left his host a signature and 10,000 francs for a good cause, which Kotsonaros gave to the old people's home in Argos.
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23 February 1995
"Metre gauge graveyard" at the Myloi depot
On 23 February 1995 the British photographer Adrian Nicholls captured what he called the "metre gauge graveyard" at Mili Nafpliou depot: the stone engine shed with its arched doors, two water towers and dumped…
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10 January 2009
The bell from Winnipeg rings all day
Jim Ganas had given a church bell to the church of the Twelve Apostles in Myloi. When the news came that he had died in Headingley, Canada, on 10 January 2009, the bell was rung all through the day.
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2010
The last passenger trains pass Myloi
Although the line had just been renovated, regular services on the Peloponnese metre-gauge network were suspended in 2010, and no more trains stopped at Myloi. The souvlaki sellers left the platform, but the grill houses…
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2011
Census 2011: Myloi 593
In 2011 the local community of Myloi had 593 inhabitants in Myloi, 98 in Kalamaki and 28 in Kougeika. Another summary of the same census gives 100 for Kalamaki. In 1991 Kalamaki had 140 and in 2001 about 131.
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9 March 2012
During the crisis, the young come back
In the middle of the Greek debt crisis two young farmers of Myloi told a local paper that most friends who had left Myloi to seek their luck in a big city had almost all come back. Leaving for the city, and returning,…
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2015–2016
Enosi Lernas are champions of the Argolid
In the 2015–16 season the blue-and-black football club Enosi Lernas, the club of the Myloi area, won the first division of the Argolid football association (Α΄ ΕΠΣ Αργολίδας). An earlier club of the village was called…
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22 May 2015
A blue Triumph Herald comes out of the dust
On 22 May 2015 Konstantinos Doris, who spent his childhood summers in Myloi, found a 1962 Triumph Herald under thick dust in a warehouse in Argos; it had belonged to the air-force pilot Petros Marinos. After three years…
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2017
To Mikraki, a family taverna on the old road
The family taverna To Mikraki stands on the old Argos–Tripoli road near the junction, where grill houses have long served travellers. The oldest online traces date from 2017; its opening year is not known. It serves…
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5 September 2017
Myloi says no to moving its pupils to Kiveri
When the primary school of Myloi was to be closed and the children sent to Kiveri, the residents decided that the pupils would not go. The statement was signed by community president Panagiotis Koromichis and the chair…
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August 2018
Enosi Lernas presents its season in Myloi
In August 2018 Enosi Lernas presented its 2018–19 team in the former town hall of the old Municipality of Lerna in Myloi. That season the club's main sponsor was the Myloi ice-cream maker FOODPROM (Provio).
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24 October 2018
Ice cream made in Myloi
A century after the first ice factory, the ice-cream maker FOODPROM (Provio), run by the brothers Athanasios and Christos Mitsakos, has a modern production unit at Kamini near Kalamaki, in the Myloi district. In 2018–19…
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2021
Census 2021: Kalamaki down to 96
The census of 2021 counts 96 inhabitants in Kalamaki, less than half of the 206 of 1951.
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8 October 2021
The Tour du Péloponnèse stops on the pier
On Friday 8 October 2021, from 15:15, the classic-car rally Tour du Péloponnèse, organised by Triskelion, made a stop in Myloi. Visit Myloi welcomed the drivers with a "Bienvenue à Myloi" poster, as it has done at every…
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October 2023
Classic cars line the whole pier
In October 2023, during a Tour du Péloponnèse that ran from 2 to 6 October over 898 km from Ancient Olympia to Spetses, the whole pier of Myloi was lined with rally cars, from small Minis to Porsches, while villagers and…
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13 October 2023
"A hymn to the souvlaki of Myloi"
On 13 October 2023 the site in2life published "A hymn to the souvlaki of Myloi", a day trip around the village's grills, naming the corner shop of Kadis. In January 2026 the Argos paper Αναγνώστης recalled the "legendary…
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June 2025
Heracles and the Hydra on the pumping station
By June 2025 at the latest, artists including ZEM tattoo from Nafplio had painted a large mural on the 1960 pumping station: Heracles fighting the Hydra, a Pegasus, and a warning text ending with a line from Sophocles.…
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10 October 2025
The rally returns to Myloi
On Friday 10 October 2025, between about 16:00 and 17:00, the Tour du Péloponnèse classic cars again parked along the pier and the waterfront of Myloi.
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8 October 2026
The 13th Tour du Péloponnèse visits Myloi
The thirteenth edition of the rally ran from 4 to 11 October 2026 with 90 teams, 25 stages and about 1,000 km through the Peloponnese. On the afternoon of Thursday 8 October it stopped in Myloi.