Is Poros Worth Visiting?

Poros formed from two separate islets, one a volcanic crater and the other a later land bridge, and the strait separating it from the Peloponnese narrows to barely 200 meters, close enough that swimmers occasionally cross it for sport.

Poros sits in the Saronic Gulf, its capital built on the smaller of the two original islets, Sferia, in tiers of terracotta-roofed houses climbing to a 1927 clock tower visible from nearly every point on the island. The tower holds a mechanism made in America in 1915, restored in 2000, and the climb up gives visitors views across the strait to Galatas on the mainland and the Peloponnese coastline beyond.

Across the water from Poros, the Lemon Forest, the only one of its kind in Greece, spreads across the hillsides of Galatas with tens of thousands of lemon and orange trees, old watermills, and a small waterfall, and in May the blossoms fill the whole area with scent. The Temple of Poseidon, largely reduced to scattered stones on a pine-covered hill in the island's interior, once served as the center of an ancient league of city-states, and the ruins of a Russian naval dockyard from the early 19th century sit at Russian Bay, declared a protected monument in 1989.

Askeli, the island's largest organized beach, runs along the coast with sunbeds and water sports, while Vagionia stays quieter and holds the remains of a sunken ancient settlement beneath clear water good for snorkeling. The Monastery of Zoodochos Pigi, built in 1720 above Askeli, held the country's first orphanage and ecclesiastical school and remains an active site with frescoed interiors and views over the pine forest surrounding it.

Poros connects to Piraeus by ferry in about an hour, and its position in the Saronic Gulf puts Hydra and Spetses within easy reach by a short additional boat ride. It suits families, first-time island visitors, and anyone wanting pine forest, real history, and easy access to both the islands and the Peloponnese without long ferry rides, and three to five days give the town, beaches, and lemon groves enough time to come together.