What to do in Poros
The honest question about Poros is whether you are going to get bored. The short answer: in two days no, in five perhaps yes, unless you use the island as a base for the Peloponnese. Poros has no monumental archaeological site and no nightlife that would justify the trip on its own. What it has is a human scale that is hard to find in Greece today: climbing to the clock tower at sunset, swimming in three different coves in one morning, crossing to the mainland for lunch and coming back before the afternoon rest. And it has one card up its sleeve: the lemon forest of Galatas, thirty thousand trees on the slope opposite, with abandoned watermills and a smell that stays in your clothes. That, plus Epidaurus an hour away by car from the other side of the channel, makes Poros the only island in the Saronic from which you can see a fourth-century BC Greek theatre and be back on the island to sleep.
Activities and tours
Cycling around Poros
Poros is the Greek island where a bicycle actually works: flat along the south coast, small, and with beaches every couple of kilometres. Hire from 8 euros a day at the harbour.
Day trip to Poros from Athens with swimming
Coach transfer from Athens to the Peloponnese coast, a water taxi across to Poros harbour and free time to wander and swim at Love Bay.
Day trip to Poros from Nafplio with swimming
The short route to Poros: from Nafplio along the Peloponnese coast and across by water taxi. Nine hours instead of twelve, with free time for cycling, the beach and a wander.
Day trip to Epidaurus and Nafplio from Poros
Poros's hidden advantage: you cross the channel in five minutes and the theatre of Epidaurus is an hour away, Nafplio an hour and a quarter. No other Saronic island lets you do this.
Water taxi around the coves of Poros
Wooden boats that leave the harbour with no fixed timetable and drop you at Neorio, Love Bay or Russian Bay for a few euros. The prettiest transport on the island.