Vathi: The village and harbour
Vathi is a sweet little place with just three or four restaurants, no shops, one bar and a volcano (inactive)! It’s a small fishing harbour with limited space so one to avoid on Friday and Saturday nights when it gets over run with boats out from Athens for the weekend.
The first couple of restaurants nearest the harbour mouth are unremarkable but the third is a gem. The lady grows many of her ingredients and she may take you out the back to meet her chickens.
It’s a friendly laid back little village, if a little hicksville. One member of my team christened it the land of the six fingered banjo player, which is perhaps a little harsh but gives a flavour of the place.
There really are no shops (though the vegetable van may call by) and it’s a fair walk over the peninsula to Methana so make sure you are adequately provisioned before you arrive. There’s water on the quay and an open air shower.
There’s a functional but rather gritty beach just south of the harbour which provides a better swimming venue than the harbour. Highly recommended is a walk up to the volcano, a fact that seems to have escaped all my hostesses over the years. Wear some decent footwear though – this is not sandal country.
Vathi: The unusually empty harbour
Vathi will always stick in my mind as the only place I’ve ever had to put a yacht aground to stop it sinking (not my boat I hasten to add). It says something about the place that the restaurateur didn’t bad an eye lid when we ran in and whipped a cloth off a table to bung up the split transom!
It was also my first ever stop as a Flotilla Skipper, and I had the joy of being cheered on by the locals as I did battle (verbally) with the Athenian owner of a large motor yacht whose lines were blocking half the harbour. I eventually prevailed but it wasn’t the easiest start to my skippering career!