Dapia

Dapia is where the boats come in, and it is the part of Spetses that decides what you think of the island in the first ten minutes. The word itself refers to the fortified gun emplacement that the Spetsiots built here to defend the harbour, and the cannons are still there, set into the low stone terrace looking out across the water towards the Peloponnese. That is unusual. On most Greek islands the war of independence is something in a museum. Here it is street furniture.

The harbour front curves round in a shallow arc. On the seaward side, the quay, the moored boats and the cannon terrace. On the landward side, a run of cafes and bars with tables out, and behind them the mansions, and above everything, at the western end, the long ochre facade of the Poseidonion Grand Hotel.

The pebble mosaics

Look down. The paving through much of Dapia and up into the town is not concrete but votsalota, black and white sea pebbles set on edge into patterns: rosettes, sunbursts, ships, anchors, geometric borders. It is a Spetsiot craft tradition and it is everywhere here, in front of the mansions, in courtyards, across whole terraces.

Ships are the recurring motif, which tells you what mattered to the people who paid for it. Some of the finest work is in front of the old captains’ houses, and more still at Agios Nikolaos Monastery further along the coast. It is worth a slow walk with your eyes down, which is not advice you get often.

The Poseidonion

The Grand Hotel Poseidonion opened in 1914, built by a Spetsiot benefactor who had made money abroad and modelled the thing on the seafront hotels of the French Riviera. For decades it was where Athenian society came for the season, and it is the single building that fixed Spetses in the Greek imagination as the elegant island.

It was restored and reopened after a long closure and it operates as a hotel again. You do not need to stay there to appreciate what it does to the harbour front, and having a drink on the terrace is a legitimate way to spend an hour if the prices do not put you off, which they may.

Getting about from here

Dapia is the transport hub for everything. The horse carriages wait along the front, decorated, with the drivers negotiating fares directly. The water taxis leave from the harbour for the beaches: Agia Paraskevi, Agioi Anargyroi, Zogeria and round the coast. The moped and bicycle hire places are within a few minutes’ walk. The seasonal beach bus starts from here.

Agree every price out loud before you commit, whether it is a carriage or a boat. Nothing is on a meter.

The honest part

Dapia is the most expensive square hundred metres on Spetses. A coffee facing the water here costs what a meal costs in a side street five minutes inland, and the front is priced for the yachts moored in front of it. It is a lovely place to sit, but sit there once, deliberately, and eat elsewhere.

It is also busy and it is not quiet. Between the ferry arrivals, the delivery vehicles, the taxis and the mopeds, this is the one part of the island where the traffic restriction feels least like a traffic restriction. The peace people come to Spetses for starts about three streets back.

Ferry arrivals are the crunch point. When a boat from Piraeus unloads, the quay fills instantly with luggage, carriages and people looking for their accommodation. If you have a transfer arranged, agree in advance exactly where they will meet you, because “at the port” is not specific enough when four hundred people arrive at once.

Note also that carriage fares are negotiated and not posted. Ask two drivers.

What to do with an hour here

Walk the cannon terrace, look at the mosaics under your feet, take in the Poseidonion from the outside, then head east along the coast towards Kaiki beach and on to the Old Harbour. That walk, roughly half an hour end to end at a stroll, is the spine of the island and the best free thing on Spetses.