Love Bay Beach

Love Bay is the image that comes up when you search for Poros online, and the first time you see it you understand why. A small cove wedged between two arms of rock, with Aleppo pines coming down the slope until they almost touch the water, rounded pebbles and a clear turquoise that looks less like the Saronic and more like the Cyclades.

It is on the west coast of Kalavria, about five kilometres from the port, past the Neorio area and ten minutes’ walk from Russian Bay.

What is genuinely good

The shade. On an island where every other beach forces you to pay for a parasol, here the pines give real natural shade for a good part of the day. You can put your towel down under a tree and not move it.

The water. It is sheltered by the shape of the cove, it warms up earlier than on the south coast and it is clear to a fair depth. For snorkelling it is the best option on Poros alongside Russian Bay: there are rocks on both sides with enough life to keep you busy for half an hour.

And the smell. Pine, resin, sea. In August at midday it is a combination that sticks to your memory.

And now the honest part

Love Bay is tiny. Barely a hundred and twenty metres of shoreline. That means the real capacity is sixty or seventy people for it to stay pleasant, and in August that is comfortably exceeded before eleven in the morning.

When that happens, a good deal of the magic evaporates. The rows of hired sunbeds take up almost the whole usable strip and there are few gaps left for a free towel. More than one visitor has come down with the photo in their head and left with the feeling of having spent the day in a municipal swimming pool with pines.

The solution is simple and it works: go before half past nine or after five in the afternoon. At those hours the cove goes back to being what the photo promises.

The pebbles: the name is misleading, this is not sand. They are smooth, large rounded stones, comfortable to lie on with a mat but uncomfortable barefoot. The entry to the water has rock with a bit of slip to it. Water shoes or sandals, especially with children.

Services: there are sunbeds for hire and a small canteen in high season, but do not count on a restaurant. Outside July and August there may be nothing open. Bring water and something to eat.

Parking: very limited, on the road itself and the verges. In August it is a real problem. Going by scooter, by bike or by water taxi solves the matter at a stroke.

Getting there without the headaches

The water taxi from Poros port is our recommendation. It costs a few euros, takes fifteen or twenty minutes and you arrive by sea, which is how this cove looks best. You negotiate directly on the quay.

By scooter or quad it is fifteen minutes along the west coast road. By bike it is manageable, although there is the odd climb.

The bus only goes as far as Neorio, and from there it is about twenty-five minutes on foot along the road. Doable but with no shade.

The plan we recommend

Combine Love Bay with Russian Bay in the same morning. They are ten minutes apart on foot, they are completely different (one is a pine cove, the other an open beach with the ruins of a nineteenth-century imperial Russian shipyard) and together they make a perfect half day.

Afterwards, eat fish at the water’s edge in Neorio, which is on the way back. And if you have the afternoon left, climb to the Chora clock tower to see the channel from above.

In short, it is the best day you can have on Poros without crossing to the mainland.