The Lost Expat’s Guide to the Athenian Riviera

A beach addict’s four-year quest to find the impossible: an Athens beach that doesn’t feel like an Athens beach

It’s a Saturday afternoon in April 2025, and I turn onto a tiny road to park my scooter and head toward what looks like a small beach near Glyfada. I have no idea what I’ll find there, but for years I’ve been on a mission to check out every beach from Athens to Sounio. And there’s no stopping me.

Except, of course, for the construction happening on-site, which has blocked off all access to - what appears on the map - to be a beach. A couple of lost tourists wander around, looking for the entrance, until a bored security guard finally informs them, with a scowl: “No beach here! Go away!”

I’ve got my own two wheel ride, so I take off, and in less than five minutes, I’m in Glyfada. I leave the tourists behind on the sidewalk, waiting for a tram that comes every 20 minutes, or a bus that might show up in two - or 40.

Exploring the Athenian Riviera is a game of patience, (occasionally stupid) stubbornness, and industrial quantities of sunscreen. Along the way, I learned a few things - the hard way.

May this special edition of The Lost Expat Digest inspire you to never give up on your own strange quests.

Here’s what I found: the good, the bad, and the weird in-between.