Anything from fine wine to a saddle for your horse, Kalloni has got it all. Good luck picking between its many excellent cafes and eateries! There are equally as many boutiques too. Pass by the church of Saint Ioánni and marvel at its beauty or stop by for a sweet treat and a coffee at any of the fresh yet authentic cafes.

Kalloni town lies at the end of one of the island’s two bays where commercial salt production competes with flocks of flamingos enjoying the coastal marshlands. A beautiful chapel dedicated to Agia Marina lies just before the old walls of Ancient Arisvi from which you can steal the most beautiful view of the bay and the settlement of Kalloni. Kalloni was a prosperous town during the Byzantium and there is a castle on a hill named Palaiokastro northeast of modern Kalloni that will attest to this.

In Antiquity the hill was the acropolis of the ancient city Arisvi. This city was destroyed in the 5th century BC by the neighboring city-state of Mythimna.The Gulf of Kalloni sits to the west of Achladeri, previously known as the Lagoon of Ancient Pyrrha.

This Gulf is a wetland that hosts flamingos, porpoises, dolphins, seals and more. In fact, Aristotle and his friend Theophrastus spent time at the Pyrrha Lagoon studying animal life and botany: their observations formed the basis for the first treatises ever written on the biology “history, parts, movement, progression, and generation” of animals. It was in Kalloni that Aristotle, while classifying species, developed the scientific framework that inspired Darwin’s later theory of Evolution.

We love visiting Kalloni for a great day out exploring nature’s rhythms on Lesvos!

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