TRADITIONAL GREEK LIGHTHOUSES

LIGHTHOUSE PAPAS (IKARIA ISL)

LIGHTHOUSE PAPAS (IKARIA ISL)

Nearest Town: Karkinagri
Date Established: 1890
Focal Plane: 246 feet (75 meters)
Heigth of Tower: 36 feet (11 meters)
Characteristic: one long (1.3 sec) white flash every 20 seconds

Mountainous Ikaria is the southernmost island of the Sporades, but some cartographers contend it belongs more to Dodecanese Island group than the Sporades. Navigators certainly would agree, since Ikaria sits close to the shipping lanes of the Southeast Aegean Sea.
Pappas Lights marks Ikaria's precipitous southwestern cape, a lonely spot facing the Cyclades and the south-central Aegean Sea. Cape Pappas takes its name from a Catholic priest who nearly died here in a shipwreck long ago.

The lighthouse has long been known locally as "the Priest". It was built by the French company Umanic and commissioned on May 20, 1890 equipped with a second-order flashing lens. The station was established by the Ottoman Empire and transferred to Greece on April 9, 1915.