Kassandra & the west

Kassandra is where most of Halkidiki's beds are, and it shows. The east coast from Kallithea down through Polychrono, Hanioti and Pefkochori is one resort after another — organised beaches, loud bars, and a road that crawls in August. If that is what you came for, it is the best-supplied part of the peninsula and the quickest to reach: the canal at Nea Potidea is under an hour from Thessaloniki airport.

The west coast is calmer. Sani keeps its own marina, its pine forest and the highest room rates in northern Greece; Afytos, just above Kallithea, is the one stone village on the leg that was not rebuilt as a resort, and its tavernas look straight down onto the gulf. At the tip, Possidi narrows to a sand spit with sea on both sides.

Inland the peninsula empties fast. Olynthos, the Petralona cave and the museum at Polygyros are all short drives north and all far less visited than anything on the coast — useful on a day the meltemi blows.