Antiparos beaches, Cyclades Greece

First some word about this website: This page is 1 of 125 about Island Strolling in Greece, and its one of 16 pages about the little island Antiparos, a very friendly and charming island, perfect for families. Like this page all the other pages at this website use a lot of photo (over 750 photos) and the site gives a lot of information and tips about island hopping in Greece. Its non-commercial made by a Norwegian family who loves Greece and has travel to Greek islands since 1982. Then over to Antiparos beaches:

I have said somewhere else on these pages about Antiparos that there are at least 5 different beaches to choose from within a radius of 10 minutes walking from Antiparos village. If you are willing to walk another 5 minutes, you can actually choose between 10 different beaches. In all there are a lot of beaches on Antiparos. If you include both big and small, you can probably choose between 25 different ones. However, I shall here concentrate on describing the most easily accessible. Let us start with Main Beach no 1, or as it is really called Psaraliki 1. This one is on the east side of island, about a 5 minutes` walk from the quay where the car ferry docks.

Main Beach 1 (Psaraliki 1). The picture is taken early in the morning before the bathers have arrived.

This beach, together with Main Beach no2 (Psaraliki 2) which lies 2 minutes` walk further south, are in a good position. On these 2 beaches there are never big waves. First of all they face south-east and with a prevailing north wind practically the whole summer, the wind blows offshore. You have to be aware of this in case you are on an inflatable mattress or something similar, as it is easily to be blown out to sea! Even if the wind should happen to come from a different direction, you would still not get many waves here, because the distance to Paros is so short that the waves do not get a chance to build themselves up and get big.

Both these beaches are shallow and perfect for children! Even very small children will enjoy themselves here. Both beaches also have trees growing close to the beach and providing shade. These are convenient when the sun is strongest. You can also hire sun beds on both beaches. In addition, you can hire pedal boats on Main Beach 1. Here, most people keep their clothes on, while on Main Beach 2 you can choose how much you want to wear. Here you find sunbathers with and without clothes. Main Beach 1 has nowhere serving food and drinks, but on Main Beach 2 there is a big, beautiful tavern, as well as a Music Club called Time Marine Beach Club. Here you can continue partying from the night before, if you like! There is a lot of noise and activity here for the guests. A Norwegian girl was working here the summer of -97.

Continue walking south from Main Beach 2, and you will after 10 minutes` walk come to a beach called Panagia. You can also get there easily by following the road south from Antiparos village, past 2 petrol stations and a few hundred meters further. You will find a sign showing the way to Panagia beach and tavern.

This beach lies due south and also has shady trees close to the beach. In the summer of -97 I spoke to a group of Norwegians (15 in all) who where on this beach every single day between 10-11 in the morning until about 5 in the afternoon. When the sun became too strong, they simply lay down under the trees and they were practically the only people both on the beach and at the tavern, where they ate excellent Greek food.

Again using the ferry quay as starting point, and walking north along the quay with the fishing boats, you find on your right hand side a very shallow beach in a bay. But this beach is so shallow it is seldom used for swimming. Continue due north, and you will come to Antiparos Camping. Just below the camp site there is a very good beach.

Very near there are actually many other beaches to choose from. First of all you can paddle/swim across to the island Diplo. There are said to be many good beaches there, but we have not had opportunity to investigate yet. Just east of the camping beach you will actually find one of only 3 officially recognised naturist beaches in Greece.

This beach lies in a nice little bay and is nowhere near the biggest beach on the island, but it is in a great position. When it comes to naturist beaches in Greece, the fact is that almost all the islands have beaches where naturism is practised, you will normally have to walk or drive some distance to get to them. Our impression is that it is easier to practise naturism today than just a few years ago. Antiparos is absolutely one of the better islands in Greece to visit for those who wish to swim and sunbathe nude. There are at least 5-6 beaches where this is possible. Firstly of course here on the officially recognised beach, not surprisingly called Naturist Beach, but also on the aforementioned Psaraliki 2 and on the beaches over on Diplo and the island north of Diplo. Apart from these, you can find beaches all to yourselves many places around the island, but these are easier to reach if you have wheels of some kind.

Again starting from the quay, go up the main street until you get to the main square. Continue through the low arch between 2 houses, follow the road that turns left after the arch and continues due west, and you will get to a good, big beach. This is a beautiful place to watch the sun go down in the sea and the beach is naturally called Sunset Beach, but the Greek call it Syfneiko.

This beach is in a big bay and is exposed to winds from the north and west, when there is a surf. When there is no wind, it is a good beach for swimming. The water is clear and clean and a little colder than on the beaches on the other side, opposite Paros. This is also a popular place for snorkelling and fishing especially for octopus. All these beaches mentioned until now lie within a 15 minutes` walk from Antiparos village.

If you have wheels, you immediately get more beaches to choose from. Further south on the island there are many beautiful beaches and common to most of them is that they have very few, if any, people on them, although this depends to some extent on when you visit the island. As described elsewhere, there is a new good road going south along the east of the island. The very first beach you pass is Panagia, but this has already been described.

The next big beach you get to is Glifa. Here there are 2 good beaches which were completely empty of people when we were on Antiparos at the end of June. Why, we don’t know. Possible because they lie close to the road. Continuing south, there follow a couple of smaller beaches which are connected to houses. Just before the road turns off to the cave, you will see 4 windmills on a hill.

This is the beach just below the 4 windmills, just where you turn off to the cave.

There is a big stone house here and just below is a beautiful beach, where there are usually a few people. If you continue the road south, you'll soon get to Apandima. This is where the boat from Paros and Antiparos used to dock when bringing visitors to the cave, before the road was built. From here they either had to walk or sit on a donkey the long way (at least 2km) up to the cave. To me this sounds very tiring, taking into account the intense heat in the area. Here there is also a small beach with shady trees. There is also flats for rent here.

The vegetation in the sea is not very exciting. First of all there is so little, and secondly there is little variation in colour, mostly different shades of brown.

Continuing south, the road will soon turn more west. This is where you find a sign pointing down to Soros. The road continues west and at last you will get to Saint Giorgios. Both Soros and Saint Giorgios contains so much that they have got its own pages.

These are the main beaches along the road from Antiparos village to St. Giorgios. But there are even more. These are to be found on the west side of the island, between Sunset Beach and St. Georgios. To get to them you have to turn right off the main road just by the 2^nd petrol station outside the village. This is signposted Kambos. Follow the road west, over a few hills until a fertile valley comes into view. When you get down into the valley, the road divides. Go straight ahead, and you get to a picturesque beach called Livadia. It lies in a perfect semi-circle. Unfortunately there is a lot of seaweed along the beach, sometimes up to 50cm thick. However, it reaches neither far up the beach nor far into the sea, and is so compact you can walk on it. In fact, many of the beaches facing west have this problem. The seaweed is thrown up during the winter storms and deposited on the beaches. In the old days it was used to isolate the roofs of the houses.

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� Jan Bergtun, 18 March 1998	Updated, 02.07.2007
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