The story behind Maritime Week
Every summer, Alexandroupoli's harbour fills with music, lights and crowds for Maritime Week - an institution launched in 1933 by the Hellenic Navy and the Coast Guard to honour the people who have lived and worked by the sea. For decades the celebrations were confined to Greece's port cities. In 1984, on the initiative of then Minister of Culture Melina Mercouri, the tradition opened up to inland towns too, so that the whole country could feel closer to the sea, if only for a few days each year. In Alexandroupoli - a city founded in the 19th century by fishermen from Ainos, with its Lighthouse standing over the coast since 1880 - the festival found a natural home. Every July, around Lighthouse Square and the seafront, the city fills with concerts, art installations, dance nights and community initiatives such as voluntary blood drives: a week when the whole town turns to face the sea that gave it life.