A palace out of place

As you head further south in Zante Town, the buildings gradually scale down, the streets get dustier, the shops less touristy. And that’s hardly an unfamiliar gradient.

Which is why this palatial complex of offices and luxury apartments, among those alleys, makes no sense at all. It pops out of nowhere in an otherwise sleepy backstreet, all sculptures and gleaming facade. It didn’t belong here before 1953, it doesn’t now (as the side alley pics show), and you’ve got to wonder how well it’s going to cope with the next major quake.

The front gate has a hint: Botsiou-Aktypi Mansion. The online White Pages indicate one Eurydiki Botsiou-Aktypi is a lung doctor in town. Looks like she is doing well enough to convert her surgery into a Roman palace, but not enough to move it to the north part of town.