Saronida, Greece 2022

When we picked Greece as our 2022 winter getaway, to say I was thrilled is an understatement. Greece has been on my bucket list since I was young. The history, mythology, architecture, and food have always interested me. When we were booking our first place to stay, we picked the small town of Saronida. It is about 1 hour (by car) southeast of Athens. It is a small beach town, where a lot of people from Athens have summer homes.

It was their winter when we arrived, December to February, so it was quiet with very few tourists. We were told that during the summer it would get very busy. There are a few dive shops and nice restaurants there, but the main attractions are the beaches. They have some really nice paved walkways along the coast lines, which we used for daily walks or morning runs. We also found some WWII bunkers along the coast line, these were neat to explore.

Photo Credit: V.Gray

The weather was exactly as we expected it to be 10C - 18C sunny with a few rain days. Unexpectedly though, we did get snow in January. We had a good chuckle about this.The snow stayed with us for two days, and shut down most of the cities and small towns. Nobody had snow tires! When we spoke to Elina (our AirBnB host) about it she said snow was "not normal", that made us feel better; knowing it wouldn’t last long.

Photo Credit: V.Gray

On the weekends, as the weather was nice, we found that the traffic flow increased (especially motorcycles) along the coastal road. This made the area a bit noiser, but nothing to worry about. There are some trails in the area that lead to a viewpoint. I enjoyed these on my morning runs.The one thing I noticed is that there are a lot of cyclists and very few runners. I would go several days without seeing another runner. I honestly did not find this discouraging though; a morning run on the coast, with the waves crashing in the background, as the sun is coming up is exhilarating.

There are also year round swimmers there, which Alexis (our AirBnB host) told us about. Ryan, being ambitious, thought he would try and join this group. On one of the nicer days we went down to the beach. I set up on the beach with a book and Ryan walked down into the water. When the water hit his knees he stopped in his tracks and just stood there. I thought "heck can't be that bad" and followed him. I got my big toe in the water and turned tail instantly. It was way too cold for me to consider going swimming. After Ryan stood there for about a minute without moving from the water, he finally turned around and came out. His legs were bright red and ice cold, needless to Photo Credit: V.Gray

say that was the only time Ryan tried swimming during our stay in Greece.

We did look into doing some diving while in Saronida. We spoke with a local dive shop, who told us that in the winter the temperature of the Mediterranean Sea can drop below 14C. It is recommended that you have your Drysuit certification to dive at this temperature. We do not have this certification, we spoke more with the instructor about doing the course which would include 1 day of lessons, with a dive on the first day and a final dive on the second day (this was going to cost us upwards of $500 CAD total). Then any additional "fun" dives we did would be $75 CAD/ person. The instructor mentioned that “fun” dives require a minimum of 4 divers for the boat to go out, and if we did a shore dive we wouldn’t see much of the sandy bottom on any shore dives. Also, to top it off, since it was the off season the dive could be cancelled or rescheduled at a moment’s notice.

Ryan and I have been discussing getting our Drysuit certification for close to 2 years now. As you do require it to dive in Canada. We talked about how much we would really use this certification back in Canada? How often would we go diving in our area? The lakes are weedy, not much visibility, and personally diving in cold water doesn’t appeal to me. After 2 days of going back and forth, hemming and hawing over it. We decided against it, with the plan to spend the money on something fun during our trip.

Our stay in Saronida was with Yellow SeaShell (https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/36343144?guests=1&adults=1 ) hosted by Elina and Alex. Out of all our AirBnB hosts over the years (and countries) Elina and Alex were by far our best hosts. Elina was prompt on answering all messages throughout the app, and they picked us up at the airport at no additional charge. They were nothing but friendly, helpful, and welcoming. Alex's English is good, and he became our personal tour guide on the drive from Athens to Saronida - it was dark and rainy so we couldn’t see much. They were also great with answering any question we had during our stay. We also all had dinner and drinks the one night together, allowing us to get to know them.

Photo Credit: Ryan C.

Yellow Seashell is a small, quaint apartment. Everything works well within the apartment and the back garden area. It is also a quick walk to restaurants, beaches, and the market. It is great for a short term stay. The only downfall we found as long term guests, is there is no inside seating area. With saying that we still really like this spot and the hosts. We highly recommend it.

We found that our weekly bill for restaurants, groceries, and alcohol would be around $120 CAD. Our apartment had a mini fridge so this did make us go grocery shopping every couple of days. We got our meat, alcohol, and dried goods at the My Market (grocery store); and our fruits and vegetables from a local shop around the corner (basically right behind the My Market).

One of my FAVOURITE deals at the My Market was 1+1. The first time we saw this Ryan asked me what I thought it meant, I simply replied "2". We both laughed, put 2 bottles of wine in our cart and carried on shopping. Then while checking out we watched the one bottle come up at - 6,85 EURO and I was right! Buy 1 get 1, even for WINE! YES WINE! This deal also applies to other items (chips, coffee, beauty items etc) throughout the store.

We drank a great deal of different white greek wines, a few reds as well, and occasionally sampled a few different types of beer. We would rotate between all of them except one of the white wines, Photo Credit: V.Gray

which we found too sweet and fizzy (it was not a sparkling wine either).

Photo Credit: V.Gray

There are a few local bakeries around Saronida, we liked the one on the corner across from the My Market on the main road. The family that runs it is very nice and friendly, the bread is amazing and the restaurant next door (Symposio) serves it.

We do not eat out very often, even back home,however, we did try 3 places we really liked. There were 4 restaurants we constantly tried to go to, but they always seemed to be closed whenever we went. We like to eat local wherever we are, and try different foods. The first place we tried was Sueltos Cafe and Bar, they are friendly, the food is good and well priced (our meal was $14 CAD). The pizza there is amazing, I am getting hungry just thinking about it.

As we walked to the viewpoint down the road we saw a seafood place called Lavraki. The first time we went here, the service was horrible! We waited over 40 minutes just to order beers and an appetiser, it was really busy (the patio and inside were full) but we watched other tables get service and leave before we even got our beers. I did not want to go back but Ryan really wanted to try again and get seafood. On a walk back from looking at bunkers, we stopped in. It was quieter and we got service quickly! We ordered the stuffed peppers, spring rolls filled with feta and spinach, and fried squid.

Photo Credit: V.Gray

Honestly this is probably some of the best fried squid I have ever had. It was so delicious. This was our most expensive meal out in Saronida, $40 CAD.

Our favourite restaurant was the Symposio. It did not matter if we got kabob's, bbq meat off the spit, or euro/gryo it was all so well done. There were a few nights where we would go and eat in the restaurant or just get take out, most meals averaged $12 CAD.

This delightful pita wrap, in the picture above, is filled with souvlaki pork or chicken, tomatoes, onions, French fries and tzatziki sauce. This is one of my favourite snacks while we were in Saronida and Athens. These little bundles of deliciousness cost $7 CAD for two of them.

Saronida was a beautiful spot to spend some down time on the beach or hanging out at our AirBnB. We knew we were going to do more outings in Athens, Photo Credit: V.Gray

so this quiet time was nice. We both agreed we would like to come back in the summer to see the difference, as we have been told there is quite a difference.

Cheers!

A map of Saronida, Greece and places we have travelled.

**Please note that all opinions and views expressed in this post are my own, from my own experiences. If you would like to see more pictures follow me on Instagram vikki.gray

This post is edited by E.Gray Editing. (https://www.egrayediting.com )**