Spetses Town

Most Greek islands are landscape with a town attached. Spetses is the other way round. The beaches are decent rather than exceptional, and the thing that actually distinguishes this island is the town: an unusually coherent stretch of late eighteenth and nineteenth century architecture built by people who had made serious money at sea and wanted everyone to know it.

The town runs along the coast from Dapia in the west to the Old Harbour in the east, with the residential quarters climbing the slope behind. The whole thing is walkable end to end in about half an hour if you march, and about three hours if you do it properly, which means going up the lanes rather than along the front.

What you are actually looking at

Spetsiot mansions, archontika, are a specific thing and once you have seen three you start recognising the pattern. High walled courtyard onto the street, so the house shows you a gate rather than a facade. Stone or rendered walls in ochre, white or deep red. Symmetrical windows, wooden shutters, a tiled roof. Inside the gate, a pebble-mosaic courtyard, often with a ship worked into the pattern, a cistern, and shade.

The mosaics are the signature. Black and white sea pebbles set on edge, in front of doorways, across courtyards, along whole stretches of lane. Ships, anchors, rosettes, double-headed eagles. Keep an eye on the ground for the whole walk.

Between the mansions: whitewash, bougainvillea coming over walls, small chapels tucked into corners, cats, and the occasional working boatyard smell drifting up from the water.

The route we would walk

Start at the cannon terrace at Dapia, then head inland and uphill rather than along the seafront. The lanes behind the harbour are where the good houses are and where the tourist density drops off within two minutes. There is no logic to the street plan and there is no point trying to follow one. Go up until the houses stop and then come back down a different way.

Work east. Drop back to the coast for Kaiki if you want a swim, climb the steps to Agios Nikolaos Monastery for the courtyard and the bell tower, and finish at the Old Harbour as the tavernas are opening.

Fit Bouboulina’s House in near Dapia, because it explains everything else you have been looking at.

The honest part

The surfaces are unkind. Pebble mosaic polished by two centuries of feet is beautiful and it is slippery, particularly after rain and particularly on the sloped sections. Add cobbles, steps of inconsistent height and no handrails. Wear shoes with grip, not smooth-soled sandals. This is the single most useful piece of advice on this page.

The hills are real. The town climbs, the lanes are steep in places, and there is very little shade in the residential quarters. In July and August, do this walk before eleven or after six. In the middle of the day it is genuinely unpleasant.

Accessibility is poor. Steps, slopes, narrow lanes with no pavement and uneven surfaces mean that wheelchairs and pushchairs will struggle almost everywhere except the flat seafront strip. That is the honest position and no amount of charm changes it.

Mopeds. The town centre is closed to general traffic and private visitor cars are not permitted, but scooters, delivery vehicles and taxis do use these lanes, and the lanes are narrow with blind corners. Do not assume that quiet means empty.

The houses are private. Almost all of these mansions are lived in. The courtyards you can see through a gate are somebody’s home. Look, do not walk in, and think before you point a camera through a doorway.

Signage is minimal. There is very little interpretation on the ground, few street names that help, and no marked heritage trail. Getting lost is the intended experience, but if you want to know what a specific building is, you will often not find out.

Why bother

Because it is the point of the island. Take away the mansions and the mosaics and Spetses is a pleasant, expensive place with medium beaches. With them, it is one of the few Greek islands where the built environment is the reason to come.