Municipality of Serifos

Contact Details

22810 51210 - 22810 52311
Chora Serifou 84005, Serifos
info@serifos.gr

Ανακοινώσεις Δήμου

Image Alt

Mega Livadi and Mines of Serifos

Mega Livadi and Mines of Serifos

(click here for English version )

 

Mega Livadi is a village that was settled on the homonymous sheltered bay in 1880 when the mines of Serifos were thriving. It is built in the fertile and peaceful landscape of the valley that descends from the area of Mavra Voladia and is bathed by the calm waters of the bay. In addition to the worker’s residences (and now desolated mansions), you could also found here a police station, a chemical lab, grocery stores, a school (in the period 1900-1914 there was a primary school, called "Gromannios School"), cafes and taverns. After the arrival of Emile Grohmann, the offices of the Serifos Spilialeza company, which exploited the island’s mines, got transferred here, in 1890.

 

They were hosted in ‘DOIIKITIRIO’, a neoclassical building in Ernst Ziller’s architectural style, ruins of which still stand at the edge of the beach. In front of its entrance, there are two palm trees, which attest to its glorious past. A few meters away stands the Memorial of the miners, dedicated to the ones who lost their lives in the strike of 1916.

 

You will have the chance to explore an interesting photo gallery and rocks in the Folklore Museum, in Kato Chora. On the left side of the bay, you will find the mining facilities, such as the loading bridge, some transportations wagons, ruins of buildings and rails running down the slope, from gallery to gallery.

 

Near the loading bridge, in the ‘Almiros’ area, there is a spring that spouts lukewarm thermal water. At this place Grohman has constructed baths that could be used by the workers for therapeutic purposes. These buildings did not survive until today. Higher up you can see the entrance of a gallery that penetrates the hill and ends at the slope, over the beaches of Malliadiko and Kalogeros.

 

Serifos island is famous in European scientific circles for the variety of its crystalline minerals, such as garnet, andradite, fluorite, hematite, malachite, and crystalline lead. The green quartz of Serifos that was found in Megalo Chorio, is considered extremely rare.