No, sadly this is not my post about Santorini. I know the glimpse of blue seas fooled everyone, but don’t worry, my 1203149830 pictures from Santorini will soon be up on the blog!
For now, I’m talking about one of Greece’s lesser-known islands, Aegina. Just a 45 minute ferry ride away from Athens, Aegina was our first venture outside of Athens.
When we pulled in and realized that the island looked like this, we pretty much lost it and started snapping pictures right and left. The water was several different shades of blue, and in some spots you could see all the way to the bottom, even from the ferry.
After wandering around the dock for a few minutes, we found a bus stop. We were following the advice of the lovely travel agent at our hotel, who put up with our millions of questions and painful lack of planning. That poor man dealt with us and probably thought we were hilariously incompetent.
But, his skills as a travel agent were excellent, and he was the one who recommended Aegina after I had seen online that it was close to Athens. We hopped on a bus that took us to the other side of the island, where we could relax on the beach aka what we had waited all semester to do.
We ended up renting the dolphin paddle boat from a group of old Englishmen (who were clearly living the life, renting out boats on a beach in Greece) for something super cheap like 8 euros.
There isn’t a ton to do in Aegina, and the buses stopped running to the beach early in the afternoon, so after lounging on the beach we headed back to the other side of the island to do our required post-card shopping.
Aegina is definitely one of those rare gems that you don’t often find in a guidebook. It is cheap and easy to get to, you can lounge on the beach with an ice cream and watch the blue water, or wander up to an archaeological site.
If you want another hidden gem (and I do mean hidden), you can check out Salamina. When our plans to visit Hydra fell through (it’s going on my list for when I return to Greece!), our friend at the travel desk recommended Salamina.
I think the bus to the port cost us more than the actual ferry ride over (transportation in Greece was very cheap). It took us a while to figure out how to get to a beach, because hardly anyone in Salamina spoke English. And I don’t mean their English was broken- they spoke none. Most tourists would be freaked out, and we were to a certain degree, but it was somewhat refreshing to be in a place where you were totally local.
We ended up hopping on a bus and getting off when it stopped at a beach. It turned out to be a perfect, relaxing day. No distractions from the outside world, just a beach full of Greek locals and drinks from the bar that ran that section of the beach.
I 100% recommend getting out of Athens and seeing smaller, less-popular islands before heading to Santorini or Mykonos. You will see a much more authentic Greece, and the view is pretty nice.
With love, from Aegina.
