Karydi Beach — Attraction in Macedonia and Thrace

You often see advertisements for exotic destinations where just looking at the pictures makes you want to go there, relax, and start dreaming...

Quite by accident, I stumbled upon one of these places, and it's not that far away by car from Bulgaria. It's called Sithonia, a peninsula in Chalkidiki, Greece. This place is magical!

The village, which looks more like a villa area for the wealthy in Saint-Tropez, is called Vourvourou and is located on the eastern coast of the peninsula. The locals are relaxed and friendly, and wherever you turn, you are treated to beautiful views, and the bars and restaurants are more than good!

The place is quiet and peaceful, yet lively enough to keep you entertained.

But the jewel in the crown of this place is one of the many beaches in the area - Karydi Beach. An almost wild combination of forest, beach, and lagoon, with crystal clear blue waters where small and large fish swim, surrounded by rocks that look like they were sculpted by an artist, beaches of fine white sand, exotic trees, and lots of peace and positive energy.

At the right end of the rainbow, there are miniature beaches covered with fine sand and access to the lagoon. There, you cannot determine what century you have entered, nor in which part of the Mediterranean, because it resembles Sardinia, Malta, Spain, and other exotic destinations.

The place is so beautiful that it cannot be recreated with photos and videos—you have to...

This could have easily been one of the best beaches of Sithonia if it would have been a bit attended by the local authorities.

To sum it up quickly:

Best place to go with kids or people who don't know how to swim. It has about 200m space towards the sea where the water is under 1.50m. The width is also about 300-400m. There is no such place in all of Sithonia.

There are no toilets anywhere nearby!!! And NO, THE FOREST IS NOT A WC!

No sunbeds, it is left totally unattended and there's only a single food truck with ok prices.

You can park the car quite closely to the beach, within the foreat behind. It is quite roomy and with lots of good shade. But the forest is quite dirty. Not like Orange Beach, but still..

It has the softest sand in all of Sithonia. Period.

NOW this is the reason why I left earlier than planned - Don't know what happens but around noon it starts getting really smelly, like dead fish and most of the bay gets colored into some brown-like color that looks and smells very gross. Even weirder is the fact that the water has a very sweet taste, never before I have felt this kind of taste from the sea ony lips. Really hope it has nothing to do with the fact that there were 500 people and no toilets anywhere....

Not the best place to get relaxed, there are hundreds of kids screaming and running everywhere. As a couple with no kids we kinda felt...

One of the most dirty beaches of Greece seen so far (swimmed in the best beaches of 1st and 2nd finger of Halkidiki and Piloponesse). Full of weed and leftover wood in the sand. One (1) star for the sand, since pure sand not typical for this region. A 200m lenght beach gathers from 300 to 500 people, the only beach in the area attracts not only 5km radius houses and hotels but people also coming from far (Saloniki) , not talking about boats coming leaving oil spots. We stayed in a very nice hotel 50m from the beach, in front of our terrace a huge parking and people shitting between bushes and rocks. First what we saw accessing our room number in front of our balcony 30m away a but shitting. No shower, no toilets, no waste container next to the beach, closest container 150m from the beach. In the second part of the day half of water changes colour to orange-brown either because of sea weed either because of ammount of turists. People start to arrive at 7 A.M. to book space. I am very sorry to see Greece authorities investing nothing into infrastructure, not even maintaining the existing one, maybe tourism is not anymore on agenda of the Government. I am afraid that this is the last time we come for...