Vourkari

Vourkari is a small port village on the island of Kea, set inside the bay of Agios Nikolaos — reputedly the largest and best-sheltered natural harbour in the Cyclades. Kea itself lies only about 60 km southeast of Athens and had 2,335 permanent residents at the 2021 census, but Vourkari's own year-round anchorage makes it disproportionately busy with visiting yachts, especially through the summer months when its waterfront tavernas and cafés fill with sailors.

The bay has a long maritime history. It sits opposite the site of ancient Agia Irini, a Bronze Age settlement that flourished before being destroyed by an earthquake around 1500 BCE, and the sheltered harbour was known as a pirate stronghold as late as the 13th century. A more colourful episode dates to 1790, when the privateer Lampros Katsonis is said to have had his ship hauled overland across the narrowest point of the peninsula to escape a Turkish blockade of the harbour entrance. The lighthouse that still marks the bay today, built in 1831 by the French Company of Lighthouses, was the first to be erected anywhere in the Cyclades.

Sheltered, historic and easy to reach from Athens, Vourkari remains a popular stop for gulet charter guests exploring Greece heading through the western Cyclades.