September 1890… Nineteen year-old Apostolos Vainopoulos from Mouresi crosses the Bosporus. On the prow of the old schooner sailing through the strait towards the Black Sea, he fills his lungs with Constantinople’s breeze and his heart with the dreams of a new life.

He reaches Bucharest in order to become a captain, to learn to command large merchant vessels, to tame the waves, to conquer the seas. He is young, strong with a dream and nothing can stand in his way. What he doesn’t know and doesn’t expect, is that beautiful Cleopatra is about to steal his heart.

Daughter of a Greek-Romanian banker, Cleopatra Triantafyllides charms Apostolos, but she too falls madly in love with him. Their love remains intact even when Apostolos embarks as a captain of the British Merchant Navy. He sends passionate letters, one after another, and Cleopatra reads them, again and again, before hiding them under her pillow and falling asleep hoping to dream of her captain.

When Cleopatra’s father passes away, Apostolos cannot abandon his beloved in Romania. He takes her with him in Greece and organises their happy life with every detail. They get married in 1909 and Apostolos starts to build “Cleopatra’s House” in Damouchari. He stops travelling and becomes a  trader using the only natural port in Eastern Pilio, in front of the house.

One day Apostolos learns from Cleopatra that they are about to have their first child. His joy is unmeasurable and nine months pass, waiting for the fruit of their love. But apparently the waves and the storms had not forgotten the seasoned captain. Fate had sent him the beautiful Cleopatra, and now decided to take her back.

The young lady of Damouchari leaves her last breath giving life to a beautiful little girl. The captain is inconsolable. He wants to end his life but the love of his daughter keeps him alive. In memory of his beloved wife, the girl is named after her mother… Cleopatra.

The fate – stricken Apostolos wants a mother for his little daughter and finds her in Victoria, the woman who would help him raise Cleopatra. He marries her and tries to go on with his life. Worthy of his choice, Victoria stands by his side and in 1915 gives him another child, Nikaias and three years later a second one, Electra.

In 1919 the captain faces the greatest challenge of his life. Little Cleopatra dies at seven years old. Her death, the greatest wave he was ever faced with, crushes with force on his battered ship, and is about to sink it. Apostolos Vainopoulos manages to stand on his feet. But he cannot leave Damouchari and his life without Cleopatra and gives the name to the third child, a girl that Victoria gives him in 1920.

Klearchos is born in 1922 and Iasonas in 1924. Apostolos passes away an evening of November 1925, watching the sea in his beloved Damouchari. In 1938 Cleopatra, the third child of Victoria and Apostolos, marries Giorgos Pagonopoulos and they have three children, Spiros, Olga and Giannis.

Maria Adamasoglou, daughter of Nikos and Olga and granddaughter of Cleopatra greets you today in “Cleopatra’s Miramare”, in Cleopatra’s Damouchari. Faithful to the legend and the love of the captain and her great grandfather, she still preserves the name of his beloved in this beautiful place…