What Is Spetses Known For?

Spetses gave Greece its only woman ever to hold the rank of Admiral, a distinction earned through one of the more remarkable individual contributions to the country's fight for independence.

Spetses is known first for Laskarina Bouboulina, born in 1771 inside a Constantinople prison where her father was being held for revolutionary activity against Ottoman rule. After marrying into a family of Spetsiot sea captains and being widowed twice, she inherited substantial wealth and used much of it to fund the Greek War of Independence directly, building her own warship, the Agamemnon, one of the largest vessels in the revolutionary fleet, and buying weapons and ammunition at her own expense. She raised a version of the Greek flag aboard her ship in March 1821, days before the wider revolution officially began, and went on to help blockade Nafplio and take part in the siege of Tripoli, where she personally intervened to protect members of the Ottoman sultan's household from harm.

Bouboulina was killed in 1825 back on Spetses, shot during a confrontation tied to a family dispute involving her son's elopement. After her death, Tsar Alexander I of Russia granted her the honorary rank of Admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy, making her the first woman in world naval history to hold that title. Her family's 300-year-old mansion on the island now operates as a museum honoring her, and a statue of Bouboulina stands overlooking the harbor she once sailed from.

Spetses is also known for staying car-free, its wealth from that same maritime era reflected in the neoclassical mansions still lining its streets, connecting the island by boat to Hydra and Nafplio across the Saronic and Argolic Gulfs.