The Greek Island That Taught Me How to Slow Down

Why Spetses may be the most restorative destination in Greece for women carrying the weight of work, life, and leadership.

I’ve been to a lot of places. I’ve seen the world from almost every angle, view point and perspective. So many places have taken my breath away. But there’s something different about Spetses, something that felt like… home, but not in the typical sense.

There is a moment, somewhere around the second morning, when Spetses recalibrates you. You wake from the sounds of the water and birds chirping, because there are no cars to announce the day. You walk down to the water for coffee and realize you have not checked your phone in an hour, and that nobody needs you. The island does this quietly, without making a thing of it. By the time you leave, you have forgotten what it felt like to be in a hurry.

I went expecting a pretty Greek island and got something more particular: a place with old money manners and no interest in performing for anyone. Spetses sits in the Saronic Gulf, a couple of hours by fast ferry from Athens or a quick boat ride off the Pellopanease Coast. Close enough to be easy. 

Spetses does the very most, by doing the very least.

A Town that Smells like Jasmine

Let me be honest about the contradiction at the center of Spetses, because it is the thing I liked most. This is an island where cars are essentially non-existent so you move by foot, bicycle or a horse-drawn carriage clopping along the seafront. It is genuinely romantic. It is also a working town, which means the air carries an intoxicating mix of jasmine and bougainvillea from the courtyards.

The architecture is the inheritance of real wealth. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Spetses was one of the great shipbuilding and maritime trading centers in Greece, and the ship captains built mansions to match their fortunes. 

You will hear one name constantly: Laskarina Bouboulina. A heroine of many sorts. A rare woman to lead her own vessels into battle, and the island is quietly proud of her. Her former home is now a small museum, and the forty-minute guided tours are sometimes led by her own descendants. The carved wooden ceiling in the main salon is worth the visit on its own. Go.

Image via Discover Greece

Where To Stay

THE POSEIDONION GRAND HOTEL

The Poseidonion Grand Hotel is the obvious answer and, quite frankly, the only answer. The best of Greek hospitality on display. It opened in 1914, the gift of that same tobacco magnate, modeled on the grand hotels of the French Riviera. It anchors the seafront at Dapia, it has hosted royalty and writers and the sort of people who summer rather than vacation. If you want a single, uncomplicated decision that sets the tone for the whole trip, this is it. 

Further down the island, stands a beautiful villa owned by the hotel, perched above the beach surrounded by flowers and trees you’d only expect in a book about fairy tales. Just a couple of steps away from beachfront paradise.

A practical note worth more than it sounds: pick your location based on how you want your evenings to feel. Stay near Dapia for the energy and the people-watching. Stay over toward the Old Harbour, if you want something even slower.

Images via The Poseidonion Grand Hotel

Where To Eat and Drink

The food on Spetses is better than the island's size would predict, a direct consequence of its affluent and demanding regulars. The local dish to know is fish a la Spetsiota, whole fish baked with tomato, garlic, and white wine, and you should order it at least once from someone who has been making it for decades.

The one I would recommend the most. An experience at Bostani at the Grand Poseidonion. Tucked up in the hills of Spetses, sits the gardens and farmland that feed the island. There are no words to describe the energy, the views, the excellence of the cuisine. Our dinner was surrounded by laughter and music, a memory ill look fondly on years to come. 

Orloff Restaurant is the other anchor, set in a whitewashed building that once served as the island's first port authority, between Dapia and the Old Harbour. It has been running since 1991, the squid-ink risotto has a following, and the view of lights on the water as the marina settles into evening is the kind of thing you remember in February. Down at the Old Harbour, Liotrivi gives you a livelier, more traditional seaside-taverna night with harbor views and local wine.

For drinks after, the wine bars cluster around Baltiza, a pleasant walk from the Old Port, and there is an open-air cinema in town that is one of the great underrated summer-night pleasures in Greece. Catch a film under the pines if the timing lines up.

Images via Orloff Restaurant

The Things Most People Miss

Walk the Old Harbour at the lighthouse end, where the working boatyards still build and repair vessels by hand, the way they have for generations. It is one of the few places left in Greece where you can watch the craft in practice. 

If you have the legs for it, the climb up Mount Profitis Ilias rewards you with the whole island laid out below and a small chapel at the top. And the network of interior pine trails hides chapels and viewpoints that you will have largely to yourself, even in August.

My favorite way to experience the island; electric bike. The gentle rolling hills and sea views make this one of the most memorable experiences of any trip to Spetses.

Spetses keeps its best beaches on the far side of the island, mostly tucked into rocky bays, which is exactly why they stay good. None of them are sandy resort beaches with rows of identical loungers. Most are pebble or pebble-and-sand, the water runs that improbably clear green-blue, and the pines come right down to the shore.

Images by/from Chelsea Zillner | Z. Luxe Travel

When To Go

Late May, June, and September are the island at its best. Warm water, long light, dinners that do not require a reservation made three days out. July and August are beautiful and busy, with Athenians arriving in force and prices to match. If you can swing it, come for the Armata Festival, held every year since 1931. The island reenacts the 1822 naval battle of Spetses, builds a replica of the Ottoman flagship in the Old Harbour, and burns it in a firework display that draws thousands. A week of feasting, music, and ritual surrounds it. It is loud, communal, deeply Greek, and the opposite of the serene island I have been describing, which is precisely why it is worth seeing.

A weekend covers the highlights.Three or four days lets you stop counting them. Either way, the island will hand you back something most places no longer bother to offer, which is the feeling of having genuinely been somewhere, slowly, on purpose.