The double arcade
Two tiers of arches stacked at the highest point.
**Ottoman in its present form, on an older foundation โ and the confusion is understandable.** โ **What is certain**: **the structure standing today is Ottoman**, from the reign of **Suleiman the Magnificent** in the **16th century**, built to carry water to the fortified Panagia quarter. โ **What is probable**: that it followed the line of an **older aqueduct** โ Byzantine or Roman โ because the city (Neapolis, later Christoupolis) had been inhabited and fortified since antiquity **and needed the same water from the same source**. โ **Why people assume Roman**: **the double-arcade form** resembles the famous Roman aqueducts (Segovia, for instance) โ โ **but the Ottomans inherited that engineering** and used it skilfully, **and many of Istanbul's aqueducts** follow the same pattern. โ **The technical tell**: **slightly pointed arches** in places โ an Islamic/Ottoman marker, not a Roman one. โ **The practical upshot for a visitor**: **a 16th-century Ottoman structure** standing on an older tradition โ which is all of Kavala in a single example.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet โ be the first.
**A 16th-century aqueduct crossing the middle of the modern city on double arches** โ about 280 metres long and close to 25 metres high at its tallest point. It was built under **Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent** to carry water from the mountain to the fortified **Panagia quarter** on the peninsula, on an older Byzantine or Roman foundation. โ **What makes it remarkable is its position rather than its form**: ancient aqueducts usually stand in the suburbs or across fields. **This one crosses a living street in a working city** โ cars pass beneath its arches, cafรฉs sit in its shade, and apartment buildings flank it. โ **Its name, "Kamares"**, means **"the arches"** in colloquial Greek. โ It is **lit at night** and is the city's emblem in every photograph. โ And seeing it is free, at any hour.
Two tiers of arches stacked at the highest point.
Stone lit after dark above a living street.
Cars, cafรฉs and pedestrians under a five-century-old structure.
Kavala, 65302 Kavala, Greece