Qualla: Spata https://qualla.com/spata en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 27 Jul 2026 10:40:37 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/9/p/spata-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Spata https://qualla.com/spata Spata: Introduction https://qualla.com/spata/ Photo credit Dimorsitanos, CC BY-SA 4.0. The name Spata comes from an Albanian word for sword — shpatë — and it belonged first to a medieval despot, John Spata, whose clan repopulated this Attic plain in the fifteenth century after migrating from Epirus. Six centuries later, the town's most conspicuous neighbour is not a feudal stronghold but the glass-and-concrete terminal of Athens International Airport, whose runways occupy the eastern portion of Spata's municipal land. The sword and the jet: history here has never been polite about juxtapositions.

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Image: Dimorsitanos | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/9/p/spata-wp/sw9p-spata-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Spata: The Mesogeia Plain https://qualla.com/spata/ Photo credit Abocanto, CC0. Spata sits in the middle of the Mesogeia, the inland plain of east Attica, twenty kilometres east of central Athens and cushioned between Mount Hymettus to the west and the Aegean coast to the east. The landscape is agricultural in texture even now — vineyards, olive groves, fig ...

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Image: Abocanto | CC0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/9/p/spata-wp/sw9p-spata-the-mesogeia-plain.mp3 0:06 2 full Spata: Deep Time: The Mycenaean Past https://qualla.com/spata/ Photo credit Dimorsitanos, CC BY-SA 3.0. Long before the Spata clan arrived, this land was ancient Athenian deme territory. Two demes fell within the area: Erkhia, remembered as the birthplace of the historian and general Xenophon, and Kýthēros. A Mycenaean cemetery was excavated at the southern edge of town in the 1870...

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Image: Dimorsitanos | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/9/p/spata-wp/sw9p-spata-deep-time-the-mycenaean-past.mp3 0:06 3 full Spata: An Albanian Clan and a Byzantine Feast https://qualla.com/spata/ Photo credit Dimorsitanos, CC BY-SA 4.0. The medieval repopulation of Spata by Tosk Albanian Arvanites has shaped the town's character for six hundred years. The Arvanites were Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians who arrived from Epirus and settled across much of Attica and the Peloponnese, and in Spata they have been th...

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Image: Dimorsitanos | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/9/p/spata-wp/sw9p-spata-an-albanian-clan-and-a-byzantine-feast.mp3 0:06 4 full Spata: The Airport and the New Spata https://qualla.com/spata/ Photo credit ΖῷονΠολιτικόν, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1995, the Greek government committed the southern portion of Spata's territory to the new international airport. Construction took six years. Athens International Airport "Eleftherios Venizelos" opened in March 2001, and Spata has not been the same since. Olympic Air — one of ...

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Image: ΖῷονΠολιτικόν | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/9/p/spata-wp/sw9p-spata-the-airport-and-the-new-spata.mp3 0:06 5 full