There's a Reason It's Called "Red Beach" and Not "Red SAND Beach"

It’s 7am Wednesday morning, and we are sailing off the coast of Turkey into Bodrum. I can see a number of Turkish towns on the peninsula. It’s also Carol’s birthday, so I’m letting her and the girls have a sleep in till 8:30 – I must be getting soft in my old Iron Tourist age. I’ve got to both finish Santorini and write about Rhodes.

Anyhow, picking the story back up on Santorini, after leaving Pirgos, we headed to Kokkin Beach – the famed Red Beach of Santorini. (Just by putting "famed" in front of the name, it sounds worth visiting, doesn’t it?). There are a couple of black sand beaches (volcano) on the island, but the girls noted we had already been to a black sand beach in Hawaii, but never a red sand beach (also volcanic). There are a number of regular beaches on Santorini, but only one red one.

After driving through the town of Akrotiki (nearby, yet different from the ruins of Akrotiri) we were cruising down a one lane, two way road when a bus came roaring at us. I made the quick decision to avoid the bus by pulling in front of it into the courtyard of some house. The other option was to squeeze to the side of the road as much as possible and hope there was a centimeter or so of clearance.

We made our way down to the coast and parked in the relatively empty (for now) parking lot. Again – free parking at a beach! It’s almost as though they want people to come visit.There is a beautiful white church built up against the cliffs right by the parking lot. Then, we hiked the trail around the rocky point. It was probably 3/8s of a mile long, but was up and down on loose sand/rock.Turning the corner, you could first see the large cove, then the beach nestled up against the red nearly sheer cliffs. Off to the side are large sections of white pumice walls. Very pretty, with lots of blue/white umbrellas and lounge chairs.

Nearly everyone rents the chairs and umbrellas — even if the beach isn’t rocky (see Rhodes write-up). However, Kokkin Beach IS rocky. There’s essentially no sand. It doesn’t make for the most comfortable beach, but the variety of stone (including white pumice, which floats), as well as the rocks in the water made for a fun time.The water, like in Milos, was colder than we expected. In fact, there weren’t many people in the water – they were too busy smoking whilst topless on the beach. There are very few kids at these beaches – not none, but not many.

I wish I had a better ear for languages, but it seemed as though most of the people spoke Greek (escapees from Athens in August, I presume), although there were many Brits, many French, and some Germans. Didn’t hear any Americans or Eastern Europeans.

(Okay, time for a pro-America paragraph. Our beaches rock. Because there aren’t many rocks. The advantage the Greek beaches have is that the water is generally VERY clear – although not so at Kokkin. However, our beaches are bigger, the waves are good, and there are actually families enjoying themselves. And the smoking is at a minimum. It’s neat to have come here and checked out a variety of beaches, but no need to keep coming back for the beaches.)

Because we had a tight schedule to keep, we didn’t stay very long. After 90 minutes or so, we headed back to the car on the overland route, with a few stops for photos (a setting got changed on the camera in Pirgos, so the photos had no contrast. I had to figure out the problem and fix it, so all the photos from the day came after the fix. Pirgos is a beautiful town, but I’m not sure we’ll have good pics from there).

The fun part came on the return to the parking lot. It was significantly more crowded, with cars parked haphazardly in the MIDDLE of the narrow lot. So, there were cars parked properly on both sides, and then a string of cars down the middle. I guess the beach was so important to get to that the high chance of having another back right into your doors because they had no other way to get out was worth the risk. Fortunately, we were right at a spot before the car blockade started.

The incoming drivers were very friendly to me, mostly because they realized we were leaving and there would be an open spot they could fight for. After pulling out, we had to wait for incoming and outgoing traffic to sort itself out, and eventually made it out.