Beaches in Paxos

Set your expectations at the quay. Paxos does not have a wide sandy beach. Its own coast is pebble and shingle coves, sometimes just a few metres of shore below the olives, and if it is broad soft sand you are picturing, that is Antipaxos, across the water. Knowing that before you land saves the one disappointment first-timers report.

The easy swimming is all on the east coast. A string of small, sheltered coves sits within reach of the villages and the road, shallow and calm, the kind of place you walk to before breakfast or once the heat has dropped. For a low-effort swim, this side is most of the answer.

The drama is on the west. The land rises into high white cliffs pierced with sea caves, and two features are worth knowing by name.

Erimitis, the island’s newest beach. Pale pebbles below towering cliffs halfway down the western side, opened up in 2008 when an earthquake brought the cliff down and left a new shore behind it. It has since become the place the island sends you for the sunset, which is reputation rather than anything published.

Tripitos, toward the southern end of the west coast. A large natural arch left standing when part of a sea cave collapsed. You reach it by walking a few hundred metres of footpath from the hamlet of Ozias, or you see it from the water on a boat trip. Both repay the effort.

Why most people meet the west coast from the water, and why that is not only about the view. The west is exposed and the caves sit under high rock, so a small hired boat is the wrong tool there in any swell, and the organised trips go when conditions allow. That is a genuine reason to take the trip rather than hire something yourself. What the Greek sea is like from one coast to the next is worth reading before you rent anything that floats.

Antipaxos, which is where the sand is. A tiny islet about five kilometres off the southeast of Paxos, reached only by small boat or water taxi from Gaios. The hop is a matter of minutes rather than an hour, but no operator publishes a timetable for it: these are water taxis and excursion boats, and the boatman sets the time. There is no ferry terminal or airport on the islet and nowhere much to stay, so it is strictly a day trip.

The two beaches people cross for. Vrika is the sandy one, a small bay you can wade into from soft sand. Voutoumi is pebbles under exceptionally clear water. Both sit beneath low cliffs and vineyards, because Antipaxos, tiny as it is, makes a little wine of its own. This is the water people are picturing when they picture Paxos: clear and shallow and pale over sand.

So the honest plan. Swim the east coast on ordinary days, take one boat trip along the west for the cliffs and the caves, and give one whole day to Antipaxos. That is the coast here in full, and it is a better week than a wide sandy beach would have given you. Our Paxos guide has the practicalities and things to do covers the villages.