This URBEX target has been intriguing me a lot both about the site itself but also its location as I haven't explored that specific part of the area that much though I used to live not too far. One of the reasons is that the roads are pretty rough and I prefer to explore on my bike rather in my car (which does them easily). Now I drive the latter so no fear.
Ladies and gents, let's go visit a mining site from the 19th century!
First of all, here is its location in case you are interested. It's one of the least developed parts of Attiki region despite the fact that it's the one where Athens is.
I leave the 85 road behind which connects Lavrio with the airport of Athens and start taking the gravel route North West in order to get to the site. At some point I made a mistake which led me to... ehmm... this:
In the absence of road and not intended to leave tire marks on a field that doesn't belong to me I make a U turn and meet the gravel road I was supposed to have taken instead. I'm pretty happy driving up the mountain in total absence of civilisation on a route that looks like this:
This is actually an adventurer's endurer's heaven. I am the former but not bike equipped for the latter so I'm gladly chewing up these gravel and partially muddy kms up the mountain. Until I find some first signs of mining activity (let me remind you that was silver back in the day not BTC):
The above could be one of the numerous vents for the silver mines of the area, today with this fence for safety reasons. By the way, as you can imagine it's not the area to visit if you have kids or pets with you.
However, the fact that there's this water tank right next to it means that it could be a water well:
That drain plug was a later add on I guess:
No selfie stick unfortunately so here's a couple of shots of what my arm managed to take in order to get an idea about of the depth:
Half a km later (or so) I am finally at my destination and I am instantly impressed. That tall 100+ years old iron construction is the first thing one can see from far before arriving there:
But the spot itself in the middle of a pine forest is so beautiful:
For safety reasons there's a fence around the site but urbexers cut the wires for their convenience so I enter effortlessly and take pictures of those cute stone buildings of the industrial past:
They're bare and empty though:
But the main building still has stuff that was impossible to remove inside:
I step inside to see what is what with caution not to fall in one of the numerous deep holes (wait for the deepest one later):
Never forget that there's no houses here in a radius of many km and the next ones to arrive there by own motivation might be in weeks...
The rusty abandoned machinery inside reads French cause this was the origin of the company who did the mining back in the late 19th century:
The equipment that once used to produce so much wealth for the area is now a free open air industrial museum:
Literally "open air" as no roof has survived:
The rest of the main building is bare like the rest (I suspect some looting must have taken place through all these years):
I move on to the next building. Now that you have a first idea how the site is you can't be surprised by its condition:
While I am here I get a chance to picture that rusty tower from a few more angles:
I did tell you to wait for the deepest one didn't I? Well, as I walk carefully around I finally see it. Scary!:
The second picture that also shows the ladder some guys used to go all the way down (brrrr!!!!) gives you an idea about the size of it. The echo that thing produces gives you an even more impressive idea about its dimensions. Wanna get a taste? Listen:
If it didn't impress you as much as it did to me then consider how far my mouth was from its opening. In case you prefer a 4K version of that video you can click here.
I am so excited by this and the sound of the birds which is the only thing I can hear there that I make a live video on Instagram which you can watch here. Unfortunately it's pretty shaky cause IG app doesn't use the native stabilisation of the phone and it's also kinda crapy quality too but gives you an idea.
This is the top of that huge deep thing:
A bit funny to see those old foot pegs the workers had to use back in the day to control all this machinery:
I start taking my last pictures of the site. The lack of roof,
A pretty pine tree in front of that muddy paddle:
One more chance to be lost and never found:
My goodbye shots of that building:
My goodbye view:
And last but not least that tower:
Time to go, till next time!
When I thought I was done I see more bits of that infrastructure so I stop again to capture them:
Too steep cliff to picture the above from more angles but opposite side of it I find this whole:
I have no strong flash light with me (my phone's one sucks) so I just try to picture it the best I can from the outside since entering wasn't an option without some good effort and getting myself covered in dirt in a questionable place like this that looked to me as if it ended in the next meter or so. To my surprise, when I edited the light of the picture back at home later I found out that this was probably the entrance of a mine:
Funny eh? You edit a picture and it gives you back more urbex work to do for the future 🙂
Hope you enjoyed it so far, see you in my next ones!