Poros & Nafplio — Saronic-Argolid escape from Athens

Par Gabriel Goldberg 22 June 2026 7 min read

When Athens starts to weigh down with the full heat of July, Athenians do what they have done since antiquity: they head to Piraeus and board a boat. An hour and a quarter on a Flying Dolphin later, you dock at Poros . This fourth chapter of our Greece series — after the big island questions , the intimate mainland story and three days in Athens — takes you on a loop few guides really tell: the Saronic Gulf and the Argolid, a ferry-ride from the capital. Poros harbour at sunset — yachts at the quay and the car ferry crossing the strait Why the Saronic stays a local secret The Saronic Gulf is the anti-Cyclades. No hype, no child-banned parties, no Mykonos in the back of frame. Just five islands tucked between Athens and the Peloponnese — Salamis , Aegina , Agistri , Poros , Hydra , Spetses — each with a sharp identity. Poros is the gentlest, the greenest, the most mainland-facing: a 370-metre strait is all that separates it from the Peloponnese, crossed by car ferry in four minutes. That very proximity, paradoxically, makes it an island: Poros lives in symbiosis with Galatas, its Peloponnesian counterpart — you cross over to buy your vegetables in the morning and come back with a bag of lemons and a jar of pine honey. The clock tower, signal of the island The pale blue Roloi (1927), perched on its rocky outcrop above Poros harbour You see it from the ferry, long before docking: a pale blue candle on the rock. The Roloi (clock tower) of Poros was built in 1927; more than the…