Saronic Islands

Hydra has no cars. The island banned motorised vehicles by presidential decree in the mid-20th century, and the rule has never been softened, which is why deliveries on Hydra still come in by donkey down the wide stone steps of the harbour. The Saronic Islands are the small Greek charter you can do in five days from Athens: Aegina, Poros, Hydra and Spetses, with smaller islands the locals keep for themselves. They sit in the Saronic Gulf between Athens and the Peloponnese, sheltered from the meltemi, the strong north wind that dominates the rest of the Aegean in summer.

Hydra is the visual one, a horseshoe-shaped harbour rising in stone mansions painted in the colours of pumice and ochre. Leonard Cohen lived on Hydra in the 1960s, and the artistic community he moved into never quite left, which is why the island has a quietly serious cultural calendar even now. Spetses has the elegant houses of the great 19th-century shipping families and the Bouboulina museum, named after the woman from Spetses who became an admiral in the Greek War of Independence. Aegina is the closest island to Athens, with the small-cone pistachios that have carried EU origin protection since 1996, and a temple to Aphaia from the 5th century BC up on the hill above the harbour. Poros has lemon forests behind it and a port small enough to walk around in twenty minutes.

The season runs April to October, longer than most Greek charters because the Saronic Gulf is so well sheltered. A week is plenty for the four main islands, and the Peloponnese coast (Monemvasia, Porto Heli, Nafplio) adds another week if you want to extend. Athens is the natural pickup, with the marinas at Alimos, Marina Zea and Lavrion all working as embarkation points.