Where is Poros?
Poros is in the Saronic Gulf, a little over an hour from Athens by fast boat, and separated from the Peloponnese by a channel so narrow that the first time you cross it you think the captain has taken a wrong turn. Two hundred metres of water, sometimes less. From the terrace of any cafe on the waterfront you watch people strolling through Galatas, on the mainland, as though they were neighbours across the street. Because they are. That geography governs everything. If the sense of isolation you get on other Greek islands worries you, you can forget about it here: a shuttle crosses the channel every few minutes from seven in the morning until past midnight, costs a little over a euro, and runs even when the meltemi has cancelled ferries across half the Aegean. Poros is the Greek island where you never get stranded. Technically it is two islands joined by a tiny isthmus. Sferia, the small volcanic one, where the whole town is packed onto a mound crowned by the clock tower. And Kalavria, the large green one, covered in pine right down to the shore, where you find the beaches, the monastery and the ruins of the temple of Poseidon. Thirty-one square kilometres in total, a population of a little over four thousand, and a density of Aleppo pine per square metre that you will not find in the Cyclades.
Getting there
Poros is one of the easiest Greek islands to reach, and that shapes the whole trip: you can leave Athens after breakfast and be swimming by midday. There are two completely different routes, and choosing the right one saves you time and money. The first is by sea, direct from Piraeus. The second is overland to Galatas, on the Peloponnese, and across the channel on the shuttle boat. If you are coming in a hire car, or from Nafplio, Epidaurus or Corinth, the second option is clearly better. One practical detail you will be grateful for: you do not need a car on Poros. The whole island can be covered by bus, bicycle or water taxi, and parking in Chora in August is an extreme sport.
By ferry
Two kinds of boat leave from Piraeus. The fast catamarans of Hellenic Seaways (Flying Cat and Flying Dolphin) take about an hour and ten minutes and cost between 25 and 35 euros each way. The conventional ferry run by Saronic Ferries takes around two and a half hours and drops to 15 or 18 euros, but it takes cars and has an open deck, which in summer is worth more than the speed. If you get seasick, the good news is that this is probably the gentlest route in Greece. The boat sails almost the whole way inside the Saronic Gulf, sheltered by Aegina, Agistri and the Peloponnese coast, so the swell rarely amounts to more than a soft roll. Nothing like the crossing to the Cyclades with the July meltemi. Even so, if you are sensitive, sit in the middle of the lower deck of the slow ferry and look at the horizon. In high season there are between four and six departures a day from Piraeus. In winter they drop to two or three, but the service never stops entirely. The last fast boat back to Athens usually leaves around 19:30 or 20:00, and that is the figure that really matters if you are coming on a day trip: write it down before you leave, because missing it means finding a bed at short notice in August. The other route, the one through Galatas, is the one almost nobody tells you about. Take the KTEL bus from the Kifissou terminal in Athens to Galatas (about two and a half hours, around 15 euros), and there the shuttle crosses the channel in five minutes for roughly 1.20 euros. They leave as soon as they fill, every ten or fifteen minutes. It is cheaper than the fast boat and door to door you arrive just as quickly.
By plane
Poros has no airport and does not need one. The airport to work from is Athens Eleftherios Venizelos (ATH), around two hours door to door if you combine the metro or the X96 bus to Piraeus with the fast catamaran. Reckon on about 45 minutes to the port and another hour and a quarter at sea, plus the boarding margin. If you land late, do not try to string the flight and the last boat together: sleep in Piraeus or central Athens and leave first thing. The first fast boat usually sails between 8:00 and 9:00, and arriving at Poros with the morning light on the channel makes up for the lost night.
Other options
The Poros to Galatas shuttle is the most useful transport on the island and deserves a section of its own: it crosses the 200 metres of channel in five minutes, runs from seven in the morning until midnight and costs a little over a euro. It is the door to the Peloponnese, to the lemon forest and to trips to Epidaurus, Mycenae and Nafplio. On the island itself there is a bus that leaves from the east end of Iroon square every half hour from May to October, from seven in the morning until midnight, for around 3 euros. It crosses to Kalavria, runs east to the Zoodochos Pigi monastery in about ten minutes, turns around and carries on west to Neorio in fifteen. The water taxis are the charming option: small wooden boats that take you from the port to Neorio, Russian Bay or Love Bay for a few euros, with no fixed timetable and the price agreed out loud. And for complete independence, several local outfits hire out bicycles and scooters on the road towards Kalavria for around 8 to 20 euros a day. Poros is small and fairly flat along the south coast: the bicycle genuinely works here, it is not just a nice idea.
What to see
Poros has no headline archaeological site, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. The temple of Poseidon, where Demosthenes took poison rather than be captured in 322 BC, has been reduced to foundations among the pines, and it is the silence of the place rather than the stones that makes the walk worthwhile. What Poros does have is variety at very small scale: a hilltop monastery, the half-sunk stone arches of a shipyard the Russian navy built in 1834, the spiral of Chora climbing to the clock tower, and, across two hundred metres of channel, the lemon forest of Galatas with its thirty thousand trees and abandoned water mills. Go in expecting atmosphere rather than monuments and Poros over-delivers. Go expecting a Delos or a Delphi and it will not.
Beaches
The beaches are the reason Poros gets an honest three out of five rather than anything higher. These are small, calm, pine-backed coves along the south coast of Kalavria, mostly coarse sand and pebble, with shallow sheltered water that is excellent for small children and unremarkable for anyone hunting a spectacular shoreline. Askeli is the largest and the most organised, with loungers and tavernas behind it. Love Bay and Kanali are prettier and much smaller, which means they fill fast. Monastiri sits below the monastery and is easy to reach on the island bus. The August caveat is really a size caveat: none of these coves is big, so a summer weekend that would barely register on a Cycladic beach makes Poros feel packed. Weekdays, and the bus or a bicycle, solve most of it.
What to do
The honest question about Poros is whether you are going to get bored. The short answer: in two days no, in five perhaps yes, unless you use the island as a base for the Peloponnese. Poros has no monumental archaeological site and no nightlife that would justify the trip on its own. What it has is a human scale that is hard to find in Greece today: climbing to the clock tower at sunset, swimming in three different coves in one morning, crossing to the mainland for lunch and coming back before the afternoon rest. And it has one card up its sleeve: the lemon forest of Galatas, thirty thousand trees on the slope opposite, with abandoned watermills and a smell that stays in your clothes. That, plus Epidaurus an hour away by car from the other side of the channel, makes Poros the only island in the Saronic from which you can see a fourth-century BC Greek theatre and be back on the island to sleep.
Where to stay
Nearly all the beds are in Chora, the town on Sferia, and for most visitors that is right: everything is walkable, the bus and the water taxis leave from there, and the shuttle to the mainland runs from seven in the morning until past midnight. The trade-off is that Chora is a town, not a beach, so swimming means a short trip out. Askeli, over on Kalavria, is the alternative for anyone who wants to walk out of the door onto sand, at the cost of relying on the bus or a scooter after dark. Neorio to the west is quieter again and thinner on choice. A genuine option many people miss is staying in Galatas on the Peloponnese, often cheaper and useful if you have a car, since parking in Chora in August is grim. You do not need a car on Poros at all.
Some Greek islands win you over with excess. Others win you over with scale. Poros belongs firmly to the second group. Its appeal is not an impossible cliff or a postcard sunset, but something much rarer: a channel two hundred metres wide separating the island from the mainland, which turns the harbour into a kind of theatre where everything happens within conversation distance.
You arrive by boat, the town opens up in front of you like an amphitheatre, pastel houses climb the slope, and right at the top the clock tower marks the exact centre of the stage. Fifteen minutes and you have understood the whole island. And yet two days later you are still finding new alleyways.
Two islands in one
The geography of Poros confuses almost everyone the first time. What we call Poros is actually two landmasses joined by an isthmus so narrow you cross it on foot in thirty seconds.
Sferia is the small one, volcanic in origin, and it holds the entire town. It is a mound covered in houses, with the harbour wrapped around it and the streets spiralling up towards the tower. Most of the island’s four thousand residents live in Sferia, along with the tavernas, the cafes, the museum and the noise.
Kalavria is the other one, much larger and practically empty. Aleppo pines down to the shoreline, gentle hills, the occasional herd of goats, and the beaches spread along the south coast. This is where you find the Zoodochos Pigi monastery, the ruins of the Temple of Poseidon and the abandoned arches of the Russian shipyard. The interior of Kalavria is still, surprisingly, a place where you can walk for half an hour without meeting anyone.
Demosthenes, the Russians and the Greek navy
Poros has had far more history than its size suggests, and nearly all of it has to do with the sea.
In antiquity, the sanctuary of Poseidon on Kalavria was the seat of an amphictyony, a religious league of seven maritime cities that included Athens and Aegina. A sacred, neutral place with the right of asylum. Which is why in 322 BC, with Antipater’s Macedonians hunting him after the Athenian defeat, the orator Demosthenes took refuge there. Ancient sources say he poisoned himself inside the sacred precinct rather than be taken. Little more than foundations among the pines survives today, but the site has held on to an unusual silence.
The second chapter is Russian and much more tangible. In 1834, when imperial Russia was backing Greek independence against the Ottomans, the tsar’s navy built a shipyard and supply stores in the northwest bay. The stone arches are still there, half sunk into the water, and they give the beach we now call Russian Bay its name.
The third is Greek: for decades Poros was home to the Hellenic Naval Academy and a navy base. That military inheritance explains the orderly look of certain buildings in Chora, and the fact that the island never gave itself over completely to mass tourism.
Green, which is what sets it apart
If you are arriving from the Cyclades, the first thing you notice is the colour. Poros is green. Pine green, with resin warming the air at midday and needles covering the ground right down to the water’s edge.
And directly opposite, on the Peloponnesian shore, is the perfect complement: the Lemonodasos, the lemon forest of Galatas. Thirty thousand trees planted on terraces up the hillside, threaded with nineteenth-century water mills and stone paths. In spring the orange-blossom scent crosses the channel on its own. It is the loveliest walk in the area and it is not even on the island.
That combination, pines on the island, lemon groves on the mainland, clear water in between, is what makes Poros a different proposition within the Saronic Gulf. Neither the luminous dryness of Hydra nor the pistachio bustle of Aegina. Something else.
Who this island works for
Poros works very well for three kinds of traveller. Families with small children, because everything is close, the water is calm and you never need to drive. First-timers in Greece, because it is a soft landing with no logistical surprises. And anyone wanting to combine an island with the Peloponnese, because from Galatas you reach Epidaurus in an hour and Nafplio in an hour and a quarter.
It works less well if you are after spectacular beaches, partying until dawn, or the feeling of being far from everything. There are better islands for that, and some are one hop away: Spetses has more elegance and better beaches, and Hydra has that carless-harbour magic that resembles nothing else.
We recommend it as the first stop on a Saronic route, or as a two-night escape from Athens when you need salt water and nothing more complicated than that. Poros is exactly that: the Greek island that is always available.