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Angistri, Greece
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Angistri, Greece
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A Visit to the Greek island of Angistri, one of the prettiest of the nearby Saronic Gulf islands is just a short ferry boat trip from Athens and is one of those undiscovered secret favorite places you have probably read about |
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Dorian had a house in Aegina. It belonged to his grandfather. As far as I know he still has it but he never goes there anymore. Dorian was our Aegina expert and he would often talk of another relatively unknown island called Angistri. He would get a far-way look in his eyes as he spoke of its' white sandy beaches and quiet tavernas with fresh fish so cheap it was almost free. A small paradise so close to Athens that it had gone unnoticed by the travelers of the age, Angistri was like a secret hideaway to the few who knew about it. Dorian would laugh at us. "Ha ha. You think Aegina is nice? That is because you have never been to Angistri." Angistri became like Atlantis to us. A place that the old people (Dorian was a year ahead of us) spoke of in hushed tones in reverence to the good old days, kind of like how some of us talk about the sixties. |
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It took me 30 years but I finally went to Angistri. It was a hot day in June. Hotter than June is supposed to be, even in Athens. We had a couple days to kill before were were going to Lesvos or Sifnos, I forget which, and we wanted a nice day trip to the beach, without traffic. We thought about Aegina but I had just been there a couple weeks before to check out the village of Perdika.
Suddenly I remembered
Dorian's fabled Angistri. |
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 There are afew choices of boats to Angistri. We took
a small one near the Aegina ferries that
was called the Manaras Express or
something like that. It was not any faster
than the ferries but we were in no hurry.
Once we got out of Pireaus and out into
the Aegean we were quite comfortable and
happy. The boat stopped in Aegina an hour
later and then it was another 20 minutes
to Angistri.
If you have been suffering through this long introduction hoping that Angistri would be the paradise Dorian had made it seem so many years ago then you may find the rest of this a little disapointing. Angistri is....well it's a really nice island. There is a little harbor but it's not a harbor in the true sense of the word, like Aegina's harbor with fishing boats and guys mending their nets. It's more like a place to park the ferry boat. But it was... nice. The water was incredibly blue and really clean. Amazingly clean when you think about how close the island is to Athens. |
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 We walked offthe small dock and into the town. Well
it's not exactly a town. At least not
right there at the dock. It's more like a
community. It sort of reminded me of The
Pines in Fire Island, but a bit more
heterosexual. In fact it was very family
oriented. There was a path that went along
the shore past a couple restaurants and
cafes to a sort of public beach which was
very crowded. But again the water was
really clean. The people on the beach were
an assortment of Greek families, Eastern
European's swimming in the sea for the
first time, and middle aged Scandinavians
and Germans squeezed into bathing suits
that were not designed for sumo wrestlers.
But the sea was nice so who
cared? |
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After lunch I walked around for about 20 minutes looking for some stuff to photograph for this website but it's not the most photogenic place which may be the reason you won't find it in many of the Guidebooks. Not that it is ugly. There are some nice houses along the coast and some pretty little gardens in the back lanes. But there are no great photographic spots or scenes. You know, like an old fisherman mending his net, maybe a pelican chasing a tourist girl in a bikini or even a cat sitting next to an urn like you see in those Greece calanders in the Plaka. As nice as Angistri is, if you wanted to make a calander of the island to sell in the Plaka you would have to bring over a dozen models and have them pose naked in the sea right about where I was swimming. OK. Dorian exagerated a little bit. Or maybe 30 years ago Angistri was wild and untamed. A place where wild goats and rabbits frolicked with naked tourist girls in the verdant hills. But for a day trip from Athens it's great. You won't find many places this close that are so nice to swim. And I only saw a very small part of it. I was in Skala. The other port is called Milos and for all I know that may be incredible. Eyewitness Travel Guide to Greece says the rest of the "hilly pine-clad island is largely unspoiled". But they didn't have any pictures of it and they have pictures of everything. Something that no guidebook mentions is that there is a lake there at Liminaria. |
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 Anyway thereare
hotels on the island so you can stay
for more than the afternoon. As a matter
of fact many people spend their entire
holidays here and it was because so many
people were asking me about it that I
finally made this page after sitting on
these pictures for over 2 years.
Apparently it is a popular gathering
place for the kind of PhilHellenes who
come back to spend their summers in Greece
year after year.
Getting home was quicker. There is a Catamaran that is owned by the island and it gets back to Pireaus in about an hour with a stop in Aegina. When we returned to
Athens I couldn't wait to see Dorian. I was beaming
with pride when I informed him we had just returned
from Angistri. |
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Then after putting up this website I discovered a side to Angistri I did not even know existed. It is a place called the Agistri Club, reknown to Greeks and foreigners living in Athens as one of the best holiday hotels within striking distance of Athens. When people need a break and don't want to take a five or eight hour ferry ride to find a beautiful hotel on a clean beach they come here. The hotel has a devoted following of travelers who return year after year and apparently things can get pretty fun there from reports I have gotten. Left from the harbour at Skala and just beyond the Agistri Club Hotel at Skliri is Halikiada beach, made famous in the early eighties as the site of the Adam and Eve naturist meeting, a testing ground for naturism in Greece. It remains now as then, inaccessible to all except the determined few who seek the best that nature offers. |
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Helpful Travel Information
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If you want to know
more about the lovely island of Angistri from the
people who actually live there and want to find
out more about the Agistri Club Hotel and all they
offer, visit
www.greecetravel.com/hotels/agistriclub You can also find more hotels on Angistri at www.hotelsofgreece.com/saronic See also: Hydra,
Poros,
Greek
islands For Transfers to Pireaus for the ferry or from Pireaus to your hotel see George the Famous Taxi Driver at www.greecetravel.com/taxi |
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Leave it to my friend Dorian to rain on my parade. Back when we were all
American highschool students running wild in
Athens during the military dictatorship we used to
go to 
But I try togo beyond nice when I can so I
followed the little road around the
peninsula and came out on the other side
where a line of shops, restaurants and
hotels (but a nice line),
overlooked a long beach where there was
not a soul swimming. This is where I swam
and it was like heaven. I was amazed that
the sea could be so beautiful so close to
Athens, and for a few moments everything
Dorian had said, so many years ago, seemed
to ring with truth rather then
exaggeration. This was indeed
Paradise. Then my family found me.
Amarandi was miserable. Not enough kids.(only a
hundred or so). Andrea was pissed off too, sort of at
me for bringing them here and probably for a lot of
other stuff over the years that she was suddenly
thinking about now. Being experienced in this
situation I knew that the only cure was food so we sat
at one of the small tavernas right by the public
beach. That seemed to calm them both down and the
crisis passed. The food was....you guessed it. Not
spectacular but...nice.
