Greek shipping in London is the quiet giant of our community: the offices, the brokers, the insurers and the families who made this city the business capital of the Greek merchant fleet. This weekend a 500 tonne Spanish galleon has sailed into St Katharine Docks, right under Tower Bridge, and it is the perfect excuse for a maritime day out with a Greek thread running through it. Here is how to see the ship, where the Greek shipping story lives in London, and where to eat Greek seafood afterwards.
Greece owns the largest merchant fleet on earth, close to a fifth of the world’s capacity, and for almost two centuries much of that business has been run from London. The first Greek merchant houses opened in the City in the early 1800s, the Baltic Exchange became the place where Greek owners fixed their cargoes, and the Greek Shipping Co-operation Committee has represented the owners from London since 1935. Lloyd’s, the maritime law firms and the International Maritime Organization are all still here. If you work in Greek shipping in London, or you simply grew up on an island where every family had someone at sea, a tall ship on the Thames feels like home.
The Galeón Andalucía is a full size replica of a 17th century galleon, built in Spain by the Nao Victoria Foundation. She is around 55 metres long, weighs about 500 tonnes and has six decks of exhibits and live displays, with a crew in period costume on board. She first visited London in 2024 and had to extend her stay because the queues never stopped, and Secret London reports that she sailed back into the marina on Friday for a long winter season. Visitors can board from 14 November until 10 January, daily from 10am to 7pm, closed on Christmas Day and with a short day on Christmas Eve. Tickets start from £12 and are sold online through the St Katharine Docks visit page or at the kiosk next to the ship.
Go early on a weekend morning, walk the decks slowly, then do a loop of the marina: the old warehouses, the lock onto the Thames and the view of Tower Bridge from the basin are free.
Getting there: St Katharine Docks, E1W 1LA. Tower Hill (District and Circle) is a five minute walk, Tower Gateway DLR is next door.
Greek stop nearby: Kima on Paddington Street, Marylebone, is the Greek seafood table to book after a day on the water: whole fish, raw plates and Greek wines, about twenty minutes from Tower Hill on the Tube.
Ten minutes on foot from the galleon you are in the square mile where Greek shipping in London began. Merchant families from Chios, among them the Rallis, set up in the City in 1818 and traded grain and cotton before they traded ships. The Baltic Exchange, founded in a coffee house in 1744, was where owners and charterers met face to face, and Greek voices were part of the trading floor for a century. Its grand hall on St Mary Axe was destroyed by a bomb in 1992; the Gherkin now stands on the site and the Exchange works from across the road at number 38. The memorial stained glass from the old building was restored and is now displayed at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, which makes a neat link to the next stop.
Walk St Mary Axe, Leadenhall Street and Lime Street, past the Lloyd’s building, and you are on the streets where shipbrokers, insurers and classification societies still employ hundreds of Greeks.
Getting there: Bank, Monument or Aldgate. The walk from St Katharine Docks to St Mary Axe is about 15 minutes.
Greek List member: Lemian and T Solicitors on Great Portland Street advise Greek individuals and companies in the UK, from contracts and company set up to property and immigration. Our full guide to Greek lawyers and solicitors in the UK lists the rest of the profession.
When the Greek merchants of the City became wealthy they moved west, to Bayswater and Notting Hill, and in 1877 they laid the foundation stone of St Sophia on Moscow Road. The church was finished in 1879, designed by John Oldrid Scott in Byzantine style, with mosaics and marble paid for by the same families who ran the shipping houses. It became a cathedral in 1922 and it is still the place where Greek shipping in London gathers for weddings, memorials and the big feasts. The small museum in the crypt tells the story of the community, and the Sunday liturgy is the best time to see the interior as it was meant to be seen.
Getting there: Moscow Road, W2 4LQ. Bayswater and Queensway stations are two minutes away.
Greek stop nearby: Halepi on Leinster Terrace is a seven minute walk from the cathedral and has fed Greek and Cypriot families after church for decades: kleftiko, grilled fish and all the classics. A little further, It’s All Greek To Me on Praed Street by Paddington does souvlaki and Greek coffee until late.
If the galleon leaves you wanting more ships, take the Uber Boat from Tower Pier down to Greenwich. The Cutty Sark, the 1869 tea clipper, is the fastest sailing ship of her age and you can walk underneath her copper hull. Next door the National Maritime Museum is free and holds the Baltic Exchange glass mentioned above, along with galleries on trade and the merchant navy that will make any Greek with a captain in the family feel at home.
Getting there: Cutty Sark DLR, or the river boat from Tower Pier, about 25 minutes. The museum is free, the Cutty Sark is ticketed.
The offices moved from the City to Mayfair and St James’s over the last fifty years, and so did the social life. Two dates this week show how alive the scene still is. On Friday 20 November LSE hosts ministers Christos Dimas and Evie Tsolaki on transport investment in Greece and Cyprus, an evening on Houghton Street that always draws the maritime crowd. On Saturday 21 November the Oinoussai Benevolent Fund holds the Oinoussian Ball at The Peninsula London, the annual gathering of the families of Oinousses, the tiny island next to Chios that produced a remarkable share of the Greek fleet. If you are new to Greek shipping in London and looking for a way in, these two rooms are where the introductions happen.
Greek List member: Vozis Travel, Greek travel agency and tour operator, handles flights, ferry tickets, hotels and business travel to Greece and Cyprus for Greeks across the UK.
Book the galleon online before a weekend visit, the Tower of London is next door if you have children in tow, and Tower Bridge lifts are announced on its website, the best free show on the river. Combine Bayswater with a browse of the Greek delis in our Greek supermarkets guide, and if you would rather sit down, our guide to the best Greek restaurants in London covers every corner of the city.
The ship is in town until January, but the Greek calendar moves faster. Our Greek events page is the most complete list of Greek events in the UK, and listing your own event is free. In the next ten days:
The restaurants, solicitors and travel agents featured in this guide are Greek List members. More than 100,000 Greeks and Cypriots in the UK read Greek List every month on the site, in the newsletter and in the Ellines sto Londino Facebook group, and member listings rank first on Google when someone searches for a Greek business in their area. If you want your business in front of the Greek community, this is the place.
Seen the galleon already, or do you work in Greek shipping in London and have a story to tell? Share it with us in the Facebook group Ellines sto Londino.
