The city of Portolago was founded in the 1930s under Italian rule, as a new model city where most of the inhabitants were from the Italian army. After Leros was attached to main Greece, in 1947, it was renamed to “Lakki”.
Portolago has a clearly urban design. There was (and still is) an open -air market (Mercato Coperto), a cinema (Teatro Puccini), a hotel (Albergo Roma), a building for italian youth (Casa del Balilla), a Primary school (Asilo scuola materna), finance police house (Guardia di Finanza), a catholic church (San Francesco), a municipality house (Municipio), a pharmacy, a clinic and a hospital, the building of the Italian Fascism (Casa del Fascio) and a plethora of private houses (the so called “villas”) for Italian officers and their families.
Except of the above, Portolago had its own commercial housing area (zona commerciale abitazioni), where the majority of the commercial stores and shops were located. This area was actually spread in two parallel roads, “Via Querini Stampalia” and “Via dei Veneziani”. The first one will be shown by red colour in the photos attached and the second one by yellow.
In these two commercial roads, there was a variety of shops. As someone enters VIA QUERINI STAMPALIA from the corner of Persiana towards Café Panino, the shops, in the order we find them on our way, are:
- To the right, after the courtyard, there was the wine cellar (Mescita) and opposite of it, the clothes shop (Abbigliamento) and the dairy products (Latteria).
- Right after the above, on the right-hand side, was the cobbler shop (Calzolaio) and across the market (Drogheria).
- Just after that, on the right-hand side, was the grocery store (Frutta e verdura) and across the store selling water and ice(Acqua e ghiaccio).
- Right after this, on the right-hand side, was the delicatessen (Salsamenteria) and across from it was the barbershop (Barbiere).
- Just after that, on the right-hand side, was the men’s clothing store (Merceria) and opposite the hat store (Modista).
- Just after that, on the right side, was the shopping center (Emporio) and across from it was my great-grandmother’s (Luise Schludt – Iacovidis) tailor shop (Sartoria).
- Right after this, on the right-hand side, was the tobacco and salt shop (Tabacchi e Sali), while opposite it is unknown what shops there were until the end of the street (at the corner of Panino).
- Just after, on the righ – hand side, was the bakery (Panificio), right before the nowadays existing courtyard.  Tabaccheria Kastis also had its TEMI cigarette sign installed there, whose shop was exactly where the current smoking shop is.
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The area is still in the same use today. The majority of the local shops can be found at Portolago, at the same roads where the Italian ones used to be…
On display in this article are some business cards from Greeks and Italians who used to run stores and shops in these two commercial roads of Portolago.
