Kardámaina or Kardámena ( el, Καρδάμαινα), is a small

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

town 7 km from Kos Island International Airport at Antimacheia, situated mid-way along the south coast of the island of Kos. It lies in the municipal unit of Irakleides, in the

Dodecanese The Dodecanese (, ; el, Δωδεκάνησα, ''Dodekánisa'' , ) are a group of 15 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Turkey's Anatolia, of which 26 are inhabited ...

. Once a small fishing village, it has been a popular summer destination for the past two decades, offering pubs, restaurants, bars, night clubs and watersports facilities. According to the 2011 census, there were 1,650 inhabitants census and a land area of 35.150 km². Between June and September the town population triples due to the influx of tourists.

History

Kardamaina is built on the site of the ancient settlement of Alasarna. During the 2nd century BC, Alasarna was an important urban center with a thousand citizens (excluding slaves). Archaeological excavations have brought to light some impressive ruins, such as a temple of

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

, an extensive

Early Christian Early Christianity (up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325) spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and beyond. Originally, this progression was closely connected to already established Jewish centers in the Holy Land and the Jewish ...

settlement (one of the few known in Greece), and four

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name ...

s that belong to the same period. Stone objects of everyday use (millstones, tools, vases, vessels), mostly made of

volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates ...

and

sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particle ...

s, have been recovered.

Gallery

Image:SquareC.jpg, Panoramic Main Square Image:Kos Harbour Panoramic.jpg, Panoramic Harbour Front {{Coord, 36, 47, N, 27, 09, E, display=title, region:GR_type:city_source:GNS-enwiki Kos Populated places in Kos (regional unit)