Beaches in Hydra

Set this expectation before you cross and the swimming here is a pleasure. Hydra keeps the clear water and loses the sand. There is almost no sandy beach to plan a day around; instead you swim off flat rocks, small concrete lido platforms and pebble coves, dropping straight into deep, clear water. Pack a towel and swim shoes rather than arriving with a beach-day plan the island cannot fill.

Right by the town: Spilia and Hydronetta. A few minutes from the harbour, you get into the water off the rocks, where ladders and cut steps take you off the stone into the deep. This is the closest thing Hydra has to a town beach and it is a ladder rather than a shoreline.

The easy coastal walk west: Kamini, then Vlychos. Pebble coves, and the everyday swims for anyone staying on the island. The walk out to them is flat enough to do in the evening and is part of what you are coming for.

The western end: Bisti and Agios Nikolaos. Reached mainly by water taxi, which is exactly why they stay quiet. On an island with no roads to the coves, the friction is the reason the far swims are empty.

Mandraki, the one exception. About twenty minutes’ walk east along the shore or a few minutes by water taxi, this is the island’s only sandy beach, and it runs as a serviced one with sunbeds, parasols and food and drink brought down from the resort behind it, open through the warm half of the year. So the accurate line is not zero sand anywhere, it is essentially no natural sand with Mandraki the small exception.

Why the water taxi is transport rather than a treat. There are no roads to any of these coves, so reaching the far ones is always a walk or a boat. That friction is the whole reason the western swims stay as empty as they do, and it means a water taxi here does the job a bus does elsewhere.

What deep-water entry actually means for you. Dropping straight into deep water off a ladder or a rock shelf is a different proposition from wading in off sand. That is a description of the shore rather than a rating: we do not certify any water here as suitable for any swimmer, and you should look at the entry and decide for yourself. What the sea is like covers the wider picture.

The car-free rule shapes this too. No wheeled transport of any kind means everything above is reached on foot or by boat, and the mules move luggage rather than people. If stairs and walking are a problem, that affects the swimming as much as the sightseeing, and accessibility in Greece is worth reading first.

Our Hydra guide has the island in full, things to do covers the mansions, the museums and the art, and Athens to Hydra covers getting here.