Poros

Poros is a small island pair in the Saronic Gulf, separated from the mainland town of Galatas by a channel only about 200 metres wide, and lying some 58 kilometres south of Piraeus. It is made up of two joined landmasses — the small volcanic Sphaeria, where the main town sits, and the larger, pine-covered Kalaureia to the north — and the whole municipality covers under 50 square kilometres. The 2021 census recorded 3,261 residents, continuing a long decline from a 19th-century Venetian-era peak of roughly 15,000. In antiquity Kalaureia was the seat of a sanctuary of Poseidon and a religious league known as the Calaurian Amphictyony, and the island later served briefly as the base of the first modern Greek navy after 1828, before the fleet relocated to Salamis in 1881; a Russian naval supply station also operated here in the 19th century.

Poros town itself rises in tiers of neoclassical houses above the narrow strait, giving it one of the more distinctive waterfronts in the Saronic Gulf, and the short crossing to Galatas keeps the island lively with day-trip traffic from Athens all summer. Sandy beaches are concentrated on the southern coast, while the sheltered bay of Vagionia to the north offers calmer water away from the ferry traffic — one of several reasons Poros remains a popular stop for gulet charter guests exploring Greece on itineraries around the Saronic islands.