Poros, one of our little island secrets, bids adieu to a classic small Greek hotel that we really loved
And a look back at the dream-zone island
We just learned that it’s going to be closing time for one of our favorite small Greek island hotels, the 7 Brothers Hotel in Poros. Hosts Niki and Giorgos for many years ran a truly delightful little family-run hotel just yards from the lively Poros waterfront. Whenever I showed up, sometimes unannounced, from Athens they would not hesitate to let me stay in my favorite room, upstairs with a partial view of the channel that separates Poros from the mainland. From there I interviewed famous author Paul Theroux, by old-school phone, throwing in a totally non-relevant question about Greece.
It’s more fashionable to like Hydra, well phooey. Hydra is great, but it is snobbish (well, it is), and — while this is more forgivable — it has hasn’t figured out a way to manage overtourism: on a recent trip there in winter, I almost got bruises from all the tourist cameras unwittingly flung in my face as I simply tried to walk the Hydra walk. So here’s a little flashback to Poros…
Originally published in “Greece Is”
𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼𓆝 𓆟 𓆞
“You’re in the poorhouse? UHgain?” my Hell’s Kitchen pal said via video call, channeling a line from some Taylor Swift video.
Honestly, as a journalist in the age of AI would I be anywhere else?
“That’s PO-ros…Poros.”
“Where is that? Is that near Mykonos? Have you seen Tom Hanks?”
“It’s in Greece, not really, and no,” I said.
Wednesday: Arrival
My apartment in Athens wasn’t ready, so I took the night boat from Piraeus. It was the last Wednesday in August. I’ve never cared much for Wednesdays, and August never thrilled me. Midway across the Saronic Gulf some sun breaks through the clouds in a burst of orange. I check into the Seven Brothers hotel and collapse.
Thursday: Orientation
Poros, I think, is not meant to be complicated. It’s the middle stop on those three-island day cruises from Piraeus, along with the more famous Hydra and one more, Poros being the middle sister whose name everyone knows but whose face all forget. This is day trip territory for most. There is no drama. Whatever significance there is belongs mostly to students of Greek political history – Greece’s first naval base in modern times was built here – and there are resolutely few sights, which is no cause for despair. The beaches aren’t amazing and the place as a whole while pretty is largely Instagram-resistant: no caldera, no Tom Hanks. I think I’m going to love it.
There are two parts to Poros, the smaller Sphairia and the larger Kaulaureia (or Kalavria), the two being connected by a very thin isthmus. Sphairia is mainly a pair of hills, said to be the piled up volcanic ejections from nearby Methana, and the bulk of the small town is perched on their western and (more picturesquely) southern slopes, respectively. The south side looks across to a 656-wide sea channel that separates it from the town of Galatas on the Peloponnese shore opposite. Behind Galatas a verdant mountain ridge stands sentry-like with a row of whirling wind turbines lined up across the top. The effect is mesmerizing and kaleidoscopic. Depending on the time of the day, and the wind and the light, you don’t know if you’re really in the Saronic Gulf or on the shore of some northern Italian lake. As you contemplate this you let other priorities slide, and though Athens is scarcely 30 miles away, you find yourself – oh, look at those adorable sea cats by the boats! – on island time.
The flat part of Poros town reminds me of nothing so much as the Zattere promenade in the Dorsoduro sestiere of Venice. It’s partly due to the smattering of neoclassical buildings opposite the water’s edge and the breezy outdoor cafés, but mostly it’s that milky-blue sea channel. It is very calm, and there are boats of all kinds zipping by at all hours of day and night: mega-yachts calling in for a few hours before heading on to Spetses or elsewhere, sailboats of all stripes and the water boats that ferry locals back and forth from Galatas every ten minutes or so, like the slender traghetti of Venice only larger. In this respect I am reminded too of the Grand Canal, the gentle slap of the water on hulls evoking memories of gondolas bobbing to and fro at the Riva degli Schiavoni. You see? Kaleidoscopic.
Friday: Family Ties
Because I am easily more addicted to pocket-sized museums of antiquity than to Aegina pistachios, the Archaeological Museum of Poros does not disappoint. It has just two rooms. The artifacts came mainly from the Sanctuary of Poseidon in Kaulaureia, once the center of the Amphictyonic League (which frankly doesn’t sound like that much fun) but also from Troizen on the mainland. Admission cost two euros. Lots of small treasures, plenty of amphorae and fanciful terracotta figurines but my favorite item was definitely the big marble foot that a schoolboy stumbled across in the 1950s. It’s in a glass case and I’m not sure what the foot has to do with the sea (if anything) but then there’s an oddball in every family. I have no guide and didn’t google it to verify but someone told me there is also a Poros Shell Museum on Poros. But my morning culture fix was enough; after polishing off a cold frappé on the Poros Zattere I headed straight for the sea, by foot. I found Limanaki Agapis, or Love Bay, lush and charming: a crescent shaped beach with a small chapel on one end of the cove and a bright green pine-clad hill as the backdrop to it all. Okay, so the water was not the clearest in the world, but for being so close to Athens frankly it wasn’t bad, and actually rather refreshing.
For dinner, I went to a restaurant called Primasera. I ate a nicely cooked big fish, sea bream I think it was, and it was delicious. I told the owner’s wife, Eleni that I had had an amazing slab of apple cake earlier in the day, from the little bakery opposite the fish market. “My sister is the baker,” she said. “Here, have some watermelon.”
Saturday
From the balcony of Room 11 here at the Seven Brothers Hotel I can take in all the action of the harbor… the little motorized boats from Galatas pulling in just a few meters in front, the sleek yachts arriving from Antalya or other ports, the waiters below setting the café chairs in perfect alignment each morning. I feel less like Henry Miller than Hervé Villechaize in Fantasy Island, except here it’s all about “the boat, the boat!” Here come the honeymooners from the American Midwest using their extra day in Athens to get their mini island fix, there are le bucket list French tourists clutching their guidebooks, and some Chinese with selfie sticks, and I should mention, at the ATM machine down below I see a father snapping in Greek at his young son who recoils in fear and momentarily I feel bad. No picture is perfect. But like a traffic jam it passes and the Venice feeling seeps back in: looking out, instead of cars I see a line of tall masts gliding past the line of rooftops opposite my balcony. Not unsettling: becalming. Where is everyone sailing away to? The best apple cake is right here!
Another half-hour walk to Love Bay for afternoon swimming, a slow walk back in the breezy heat, some Kayak stracciatella ice cream (which is basically my wine) and an early evening collapse.
Sunday: Poseidon’s Lair(s)
As a native Southern California, I can be quite passionate about being non-productive, so Poros and I are starting to become good friends. But because Poseidon is hands down my favorite male Greek deity (it must be the trident…he really knew how to accessorize!), I had to visit the Sanctuary of Poseidon which is not at all easy to find without a car. Actually when you come to the intersection of affinity and affection, which is where I was heading, it’s helpful to have few cars around. But mopeds come in handy so I jumped onto Eleni’s and off we went to a high ridge in the north where the ruins are. And as unremarkable as they are, the Doric columns of the fifth-century BC temple having long since been removed, the view to the north up the Saronic Gulf is stunning. Way down below at the end of the Bitsi peninsula you can see the itsy-bitsy bay of Vagiona, with its curved beach that is the only one on the island’s northern shore.
Under the water at Vagiona and too far offshore they say there are the ruins of a sunken city. So back at the harbor I buy a swimming mask for a song and later in the day take a ten-euro taxi ride up to the bay. The beach itself is pitch-perfect, just a thin crescent of sand with a single row of sun beds and a simple beach taverna that makes a fantastic best Greek salad I’ve had in a long time (they remembered the capers, and even peeled the tomatoes!). I slip off my jeans and slip on the mask and off I go, looking out for sea urchins and anemonies. Several dozen yards out the water while not crystal clear is not so opaque as to obscure what appear to be numerous stone fragments. But the current is strong so I swim back to the beach. The bay is cradled by steep green hills on either side and for a moment I almost think I’m in some secluded Balearic cove, but then I look straight ahead, and I see Piraeus…
