Forty minutes from Athens, which is exactly why people underrate it.
Perdika · Moni · the water behind the village — July 2026
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Where
Aegina, in the Saronic Gulf
Getting there
About forty minutes by boat from Piraeus — close enough that most people come only for the day
The town
Greece’s first capital, which is why a small port has neoclassical buildings on it
Perdika
A fishing village on the southwest corner. Whitewashed, stepped, tavernas on the water.
Moni
A ten-minute crossing from Perdika. Peacocks and deer live on it.
Temple of Aphaia
On a hill on the east side, older than the Parthenon
Agios Nektarios
A monastery for Greece’s first modern saint, still a place of pilgrimage
Palaiochora
The medieval capital, abandoned — the remains of dozens of stone chapels on a hillside
Eat
Pistachios, roasted that morning. They are grown here and they are not the thing you buy elsewhere.
Also lived here
Kazantzakis, who wrote nearby
Why it's here
Aegina is forty minutes from Athens, which is the reason most people underrate it. It gets treated as a day trip — boat over, pistachios, temple, boat back — and a day trip is exactly the wrong shape for it.
What it actually is: an island that has been continuously lived on rather than continuously visited. It was the first capital of modern Greece, so the port has real buildings rather than resort architecture. The pistachio groves are working farms. Palaiochora is a hillside of ruined chapels that nobody has turned into anything.
The harbour at the hour the day trippers have already gone
