Agia Marina, on the east coast, is the sandy one. It is also the resort end of the island, which on Aegina means something much smaller than the word suggests elsewhere.
Diagram by Greece Trips. Free to reuse with credit - CC BY 4.0.
If you want sand and something organised behind it, this is where it is.
The answer first, because it saves a disappointed afternoon
Aegina’s beaches are modest, and they are not why anybody should come.
This is a working island forty minutes from Piraeus with one of the best-preserved Doric temples in Greece on it, a farming interior and an emptied hill town of chapels. The swimming is what you do between those things.
Judged that way it is perfectly good; judged as a beach holiday it is not.
We say that on our own beaches guide, and we are not going to soften it on the page for the beach itself.
What “the resort end” means here
Less than you think. Our guide’s phrasing is deliberate: much smaller than the word suggests elsewhere.
We name no hotel, no beach bar and no sunbed operator, and we print no facilities list. Aegina is forty minutes from Piraeus and things change; a page written months earlier is the wrong authority on what is open on the day you arrive.
The alternatives, and the one that beats it
Marathonas and Perdika, in the southwest, are the smaller ones. Quieter, less developed, and closer to the character of the rest of the island. They suit an afternoon rather than a day.
Moni, which is the best swim here and is not on Aegina at all. Perdika is the fish-taverna village and the boat point for Moni, an uninhabited islet a few minutes offshore with clear water.
That is worth knowing before you commit a day to the sand.
What you are actually here for
The Temple of Aphaia: a Doric temple of around 500 BC in the north-east of Aegina, among the best preserved in Greece, with most columns still standing.
Palaiochora: the abandoned Byzantine and Venetian hill town inland, emptied in the nineteenth century, where around thirty churches and chapels still stand on an otherwise empty slope.
Aegina town is a proper port: a curving waterfront of neoclassical houses, fishing boats selling from the quay, and a single surviving column of the Temple of Apollo on the headland at Kolona, with a museum beside it.
The island’s pistachios are a protected designation and are the standard thing visitors take home.
Practical notes
Ferries and fast boats from Piraeus all day. It works as a day trip, but the temple, Palaiochora and a swim make a rushed one. One night turns it into a proper visit, and the town in the evening is the best part.
Ferry frequency changes by season.
Common questions
Is Agia Marina sandy? Yes - it is the sandy one on the island.
Is Aegina good for beaches? Our own answer: they are modest. Agia Marina is the sandy resort beach; Marathonas and Perdika are smaller and quieter.
What is the best swim on Aegina? Moni - which is not on Aegina, but a few minutes offshore from Perdika.
Next
Our Aegina guide has the ferries, the beaches cover the whole coast, and the Temple of Aphaia covers the reason to come.