Camping Marmaras — Hotel in Municipality of Sithonia

I'm writing this about a visit we made here on the 17th May 2022. The first time we visited was perhaps 18 or 19 years ago, the second time 2 years after that. Let me tell you the story.|||We've loved this part of Greece since we were in our 20's, and we're in our early 60's. We started coming here when we didn't have two pennies to rub together. We now lucky enough to have been able to retire early so have been travelling for the last 8 years baring the pandemic interruptions.|||So what seems to be a lifetime ago we were staying in apartments in Kalamitsi with some friends of ours and decided to splash out and rent a boat for the day. ||In those days there was only two places on the whole peninsula where you could rent a boat and the nearest one to us was at the monstrosity of the hotel just south of Neo Marmaras, I can't remember the name of the hotel and wouldn't want to advertise the carbuncle of a place anyway. But nonetheless this was the spot where you could hire little speed boats with I think 45 horsepower engines in those days. Which is what we did.|||We'd come prepared as you would expect from couples doing all we could to stretch our budgets, Mythos, local white wine, fruit, sandwiches, hats, suntan cream, towels both our own and some smuggled out of our apartments, there may even have been a bottle of water I can't remember although that sounds a little too sensible for us.|||Well we were loving it, we headed north first past Neo Marmaras Harbour and along the coast going slowly past the lovely villas whose gardens came down to the sea and along for a good while passing place's that were simply stunning. |||After lunch pulled up on a beach we decided to head south. Past where we had come from and calling into every little bay we could to explore and swim, and sunbathe and probably drink another Mythos or two.|||The bays we past were nice but wild looking, one I remember had what looked like a wartime Dock, very utilitarian and ugly surround by beautiful crystal clear water, the contrast was marked. Anyway, we continued down the coast until we turn into the bay where Areti Camping is to be found.|||Well it was like beautifully different from the wildness we'd been passing but yet still wild looking, just clean and tidy wild. The bay was smallish, perfectly shaped with a lovely sandy beach and bushes in flower that looked organised but in a higgledy-piggledy way. We had to slow down to take a closer look, I can remember the conversation, the girls thought it might have been another garden of some rich folk like we'd seen further north.|||We weren't sure so pootled slowly around the bay thinking that this might be another lovely place to spend some time this until we saw a young man walking towards the small jetty slightly to the left of the bay, he waved and smiled. Thinking the natives looked friendly we pulled up on the beach and said hello.|||This was our first meeting of George, or Georgios to be correct. He was, and still is a lovely guy. He was keen for us to see what was on offer and to be honest, it was so lovely we were braking our necks to have s look. |||The beautiful flowering bushes we'd seen from the boat turned out to be used as flowering walls separating each camping area. The bedrooms at that time look a bit like a mix of beach hut and a mini railway carriage, in fact I think they had little metal wheels on them so they didn't need planning permission or tax or something. But anyway the flowering hedges had been shaped over the years to provide really lovely living spaces, with almost everything outside including sunbathing and cooking spaces, everything except your bedroom which was in the beach huts on wheels.|||George offered us something to eat and drink which we were delighted to accept. It's weird I can remember all sorts of details about this visit but I can't think what we ate, it'll have been something Greek I'm sure. George cooked gave us space to eat then when we had finished showed us the first of the newly built bungalows. |||I think calling them bungalows is perhaps being a bit disingenuous to these really beautifully built and finished mini villa's. These were way nicer than we were staying in and we thought at the time far beyond our budget, but we were happy for George who was clearly proud of what they were doing and doing a brilliant job of selling them to prospective holiday makers. |||We walked around simply enjoying the wonderful spaces paid for our meals and headed off back up the coast to return the boat and make our way back. |||We'd love everything about the place so much that two years later whilst on holiday in Pefkochori we decided to rent a boat again. As I said earlier there weren't that many places you could rent boats in those days so we drove round to the carbuncle once again and rented our boat. |||Part of that day had to include a visit to George, he'd been so lovely, so excited about their new venture into the bungalow project that all of us were keen to see how things had developed. |||We moored the boat on the beach and was greet by George walking down the path to meet us, huge smile on his face his arm out reached to shake our hands and said, hello Richard how lovely to see you again.|||Now that's special, that makes you feel special and I think that might be something to do with the place. |||Now not wishing to spoil the lovely story and as I said right at the very beginning of this tail, nay recommendation. We visited Areti again in May of this year. I walked up to the lovely reception cottage, that's new BTW, and said to the man, is George about, he said I'm George and slowly through the mist of time George's face appeared. |||He'd aged of course, way more than me, the first time I met him I'd have been about 12 stone dripping wet (that's 168bls or 76kgs in euros 😜) with long black hair. I'm only 17 stone (238 & 108) and as bald as a coot now so was somewhat hurt when he didn't greet me with hello Richard how nice to see you again, not even a where the hell have you been for the last 18 years, no nothing.|||You'll not be surprised having read this far that I paraphrase the story to George and in the enviable way of George he invited us for a drink and a walk around and down memory lane. |||The place, as as well as George, has matured into a beautiful rustic retreat. Spotlessly clean showers and loos a lovely taverna restaurant area and the same lovely bay with soft soft sand. |||You should definitely go and stay a while. Say Richard sent you xx the skinny one...

Let me elaborate on our very recent experience with Camping Maramaras. We´ve called a coule of days in advance, received a promise of a spot and have been looking forward to staying in the Chalkidiki region, this being the third stop on our trip. As we´ve been travelling the world, from the Western Europe all the way to China, neither me, nor my wife has had a chance to see such a remarkably neglected place in such a good spot. Let me get deeper. One (and only) positive sign is the view. The view (as per my picture from 08/2024) is all you can ask for and then some. But that´s it. The rest, I mean the whole campsite, looks like a drug addicts´ crackhead infested backhouse from the 1970s. This "campsite" has seen none to very little maintenance, with the owner who cusses, curses, attacks and even tries to force you out in the middle of the night in case you mention any rather obvious fact of extended deterioration, such as, but not limited to, unbeleviable stench of sewerage all throughout camp (cased by the combination of high temperature and non-encapsulated pumping of raw sewage from the ever more deteriorating bathrooms (if you wish to call them that) where you dare not stand on the ground, to the (hopefully) canalization system of the city Neu Marmaras, completely unsanitary taverna with decades old equipment as well as years worth of layers of oils. Everything is broken, falling apart, or just barely hanging. This could be so much more, as the location itself is near perfect for beach goers as well as those who prefer to visit the city(ies) nearby. It wasn´t cheap either, nor calm. But the beach (roughly 100m2) was...

We found our favorite campsite in Sithonia! Our first impression was very positive. This year we came with our one-year-old baby, and even before our arrival, the very kind owner of the campsite let us know by email that it was very crowded and he wasn’t sure if he would be able to find us a fully shaded spot. We came prepared to move around, but to our surprise we were welcomed with the perfect place – sea view and total shade.

Unlike other campsites, here we had the option to rent a fridge right next to our tent, which was one of the biggest advantages we’ve ever had while camping. The beach is ideal for children – in natural shade the entire morning, so we never even needed to open our umbrellas. The center of Marmaras is just a 5-minute walk away, so we didn’t need to use the car at all.

As for the toilets, which are often mentioned in reviews, we honestly didn’t find them to be in such bad condition. We camp with three small kids, and for us this has been one of the most enjoyable camping experiences so far.

We definitely plan to come back next year for at least two weeks. A big thank you to Vangelis, the owner, for this...