A horseshoe of low pine forest at the south end of the chain — sea-captain mansions, horse-drawn carriages and Bouboulina’s house.
Spetses is the southernmost Saronic — twenty-five square kilometres of low pine forest at the south end of the gulf, two hours by hydrofoil from Piraeus, with a single town of late-18th- and 19th-century sea-captain mansions on the north coast and a coast road that loops the whole island in twenty-six kilometres.
The town has the architectural set-piece: Bouboulina’s house (the home of Laskarina Bouboulina, the female naval commander of the 1821 War of Independence — a small museum with her uniform, her cannon and her dining room), the Anargyrios School (the 1927 boarding school where John Fowles taught and which became the setting for The Magus), and the Old Harbour (a kilometre east of the town, lined with white-and-blue 18th-century mansions and a working shipyard that still builds wooden caïques). The annual Armata (early September) commemorates a 1822 naval victory with a re-enacted burning of a Turkish frigate in the harbour and three days of music. The island has no cars in the historic centre — transport is by horse-and-carriage, scooter, or the small public bus that loops the coast road. Pine cover is dense; beaches are on the south coast (Agioi Anargyroi, Zogeria, Vrellos); the most-famous is Agia Paraskevi, the cove of the boy in The Magus. Combine with: a Hydra–Spetses two-island stay; a long-lunch day at Tarsanas; a horse-drawn carriage tour of the Old Harbour.
A Spetses day.
Gate E8; 08:30 departure; 10:30 in Spetses harbour.
Hour at the small museum — uniform, dining room, cannon. €5.
Hour's walk east along the seaside path; the white-and-blue mansions; the wooden-boat yard.
Pre-booked terrace table on the boatyard; fish lunch; three hours; €40 per head.
Twenty-minute horse-and-carriage ride west to the Magus cove; an hour's swim and a coffee.
Half-hour back; an Aperol at the Poseidonion bar before the boat.
Two hours back to Piraeus; metro home; dinner in Athens by 22:00.
Across the gulf.
Twenty-minute hydrofoil north — the artists' island. Detail on the Hydra page.
Five-minute water-taxi to the small Peloponnese fishing village opposite — the closest mainland point.
Half-hour ferry south — the small Argolida resort village.
Two hours' hydrofoil — the harbour.
A kilometre east of the town — the working wooden-boat shipyard and the 18th-century mansions.
Tell us a little about the trip you want — pace, who's coming, how you'd like to spend your mornings. We'll build the days.
