This year I surprised myself. For the first time, I craved a holiday where I could spend a day on the beach swimming in crystal clear warm water, but could combine it with the odd day of culture to stop me getting restless! A ten day trip around the Greek Islands, some known but some much less known, fulfilled my fairly strict check list perfectly. Warm sun? Yes. Good food? Plenty. Friendly people? Everywhere. Secluded beaches? Hopefully. Ruins and culture? Thankfully yes! Unspoilt? Almost.
Greece truly threw me in at the deep end into the party capital of the Greek islands: Mykynos Town, Greece’s answer to Ibiza. Mykonos-by-day was a picture postcard slow-paced white washed town with blue shutters and trailing bougainvillea. By night, things livened up but to my surprise I loved it. The quayside bars and restaurants provided the best people-watching opportunities I’ve had in a long while and with menus pricing wine by the kilo, what could be better? When I travel now, I want to explore, meet local people and fulfil that time-old cliché to ‘find something new’ not something I can get by going to any bar or club in London. Fortunately for me, Paradise and Super Paradise beaches, location for the super clubs for the super beautiful, were a bus ride away.
An hour’s boat trip from Mykonos Town is the uninhabited island of Delos and my fix of ancient ruins for the week. Centre of the Cyclades group of islands, Delos was said to be the birth place of the twin gods Apollo and Artemis and became the location for the Greek empire’s treasury. It’s a refreshing contrast to its neighbouring island, developed for the tourists of today, where life doesn’t seem get going before midday. On Delos all visitors have to leave the island by 3pm.
After Mykonos I wanted to find somewhere small and traditional with very few other tourists around. I was optimistic when arriving in the main port town of Samos, which is closer to Turkey than mainland Greece. Taking a bus along the north coast we found Kokkari, a small town with a delightful quayside lined with restaurants and bars. Having purposely avoided the school holidays, they were busy enough not to lack atmosphere in the evenings but quiet enough to get a waterside table each night. The town’s beaches, however, were busy almost from sunrise to sunset, with tourists, mainly Dutch and German, desperate to catch the last of the warm summer rays. I was heading in the right direction but still not quite quiet enough.
The next attempt was Patmos. The ferry left Samos and stopped en route at the tiny islands of Arkoi and Agathonissi – secluded rocky outcrops with perhaps only ten families still permanently living there. Arriving in Patmos, the port felt like a ‘working’ port, and not as geared up around tourists. I was hopeful. The sketchy bus network meant the only way to find my beach was to hire a car. As is typical of the Greek way of life, hiring the car involved less paperwork than hiring a surfboard somewhere in Devon. Crowning the hill above Patmos port is the Monastery of St. John the Evangelist. Built like a fortress, it resembles a Byzantine castle and can be seen from most of the island atop the white-walled town of Chora. Along with the Cave of the Apocalypse, reputed to be where St. John wrote the Book of Revelations, these are the main attractions that draw tourists to Patmos, which meant the beaches should be less visited.
Having read that there were no traffic lights on the island and there was a beach that was only accessible by boat or a 40 minute walk, I was growing ever more optimistic that my idealistic beach was near and set out to find it. Several wrong turns later and we’re attempting a three-point-turn on a narrow rocky dirt track more suited for a 4x4 than our struggling Fiat Panda from “Tom & Jerry rent-a-car”. Eventually a small line of parked cars and a sign for Psili Ammos, “fine sand”, suggested we were in the right place. A rocky footpath over the cliffs led us to a beautiful wide, sandy beach nestled between two headlands.
We did find the beach but it wasn’t the one that took 40 minutes to walk to. Psili Ammos was beautiful and sandy, but lying on the west of the island it was so unsheltered from the wind and the water too wavy to tick off all the boxes. The best beach was one not advertised anywhere, with just one taverna to choose from and a row of trees to provide shade. The crystal clear water was as inviting as any tropical beach and although it was fine shingle and not white sand, rather than putting me off, it just meant that other tourists were discouraged from staying.
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