Ocean Monarch was a passenger steamship that was built by Vickers-Armstrongs in 1950. She served with Furness Bermuda Line for fifteen years, then with a Bulgarian company for three years, renamed Varna. She spent much of the 1970s laid up and was renamed Venus and then Riviera. In the early 1980s, she was renamed Reina del Mar and refitted for further use as a cruise ship, but a fire gutted her; and she was scuttled on 1 June 1981 after another fire broke out.
Location
1.5 km
The Battle of Salamis was a naval battle fought in 480 BC, between an alliance of Greek city-states under Themistocles, and the Achaemenid Empire under King Xerxes. It resulted in a victory for the outnumbered Greeks.
The battle was fought in the straits between the mainland and Salamis, an island in the Saronic Gulf near Athens, and marked the high point of the second Persian invasion of Greece. It was arguably the largest naval battle of the ancient world, and marked a turning point in the invasion.
To block the Persian advance, a small force of Greeks blocked the pass of Thermopylae, while an Athenian-dominated allied navy engaged the Persian fleet in the nearby straits of Artemisium. In the resulting Battle of Thermopylae, the rearguard of the Greek force was annihilated, while in the Battle of Artemisium the Greeks suffered heavy losses and retreated after the loss at Thermopylae. This allowed the Persians to conquer Phocis, Boeotia, Attica and Euboea. The allies prepared to defend the Isthmus of Corinth while the fleet was withdrawn to nearby Salamis Island.
Although heavily outnumbered, the Greeks were persuaded by Athenian general Themistocles to bring the Persian fleet to battle again, in the hope that a victory would prevent naval operations against the Peloponnese. Persian king Xerxes was also eager for a decisive battle. As a result of subterfuge on the part of Themistocles, the Persian navy rowed into the Straits of Salamis and tried to block both entrances. In the cramped waters, the great Persian numbers were an active hindrance, as ships struggled to maneuver and became disorganized. Seizing the opportunity, the Greek fleet formed in line and achieved a victory.
Xerxes retreated to Asia with much of his army, leaving Mardonius to complete the conquest of Greece. The following year the remainder of the Persian army was defeated at the Battle of Plataea and the Persian navy at the Battle of Mycale. The Persians made no further attempts to conquer the Greek mainland. The battles of Salamis and Plataea thus mark a turning point in the course of the Greco-Persian Wars as a whole; from then onward, the Greek poleis would take the offensive.
2.4 km
Perama is a coastal town and a suburb of Piraeus. It belongs to the Piraeus regional unit and is the southwestern limit of Athens urban area. It lies on the southwest edge of the Aegaleo mountains, on the Saronic Gulf coast. It is 8 km northwest of Piraeus, and 14 km west of the center of Athens. The municipality has an area of 14.729 km2. It forms the western terminus of the Port of Piraeus, and there is also a passenger port that provides ferry services to Salamis Island.
The name Perama comes from the Greek word "perasma" which means "passage". Perama has a secondary soccer team named Peramaikos. The Battle of Salamis which took place in 480BC was located between the Salamis island and the mainland, part of which included Perama.
2.6 km
Atalanti Island is an island off the western coast of Attica region, between Salamis Island and the port of Athens, Piraeus. Anciently, the island was called Atalanta or Atalante.
2.9 km
Ampelakia is a town and a former municipality of Salamis Island, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Salamis, of which it is a municipal unit.
It lies on the central east coast of the island and has a land area of 15.169 km2, comprising about one-sixth of the island's area. It has a population of 6,985 inhabitants.
3.5 km
Psyttaleia is an uninhabited island in the Saronic Gulf between the harbor of Piraeus and the Kynosoura peninsula on Salamis Island, Greece. It covers an area of 0.375 square kilometers. The island houses Athens' largest sewage treatment plant, which is also the largest in Europe, with a projected daily maximum drying capacity of 750 tons of sewage. Administratively it is part of the Municipality of Piraeus.
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