Althaia Pension

I’m so glad we stopped overnight at this very pretty seaside town. It’s much cleaner than the big city of Athens and its restaurants and shops just seemed fresher, newer somehow, even though it’s the old town. At the accommodation, be prepared for stairs. Two very steep flights of uneven, listing, narrow stairs just to get to the checkin desk, then another short flight up to the rooms. Thank goodness we had only one bag each and it was a challenge with that. However, the location of the hotel itself is great, right in the middle of the old town with shops and restaurants lining every street, the harbor just a few minutes walk away and the road up the mountain to the castles, again just minutes away. It's also a great location for a visit to Mycenae, barely a 25 minute drive and a must-see historical site. Vicky the host provided a most wonderful recommendation for dinner at an award winning fish restaurant, Savouras Fish Tavern. It was a fabulous! And, Vicky must be acknowledged for her patience with our laundry. One deciding factor of us staying at this place was that we learned we could do laundry there. After almost two weeks on the road we were excited for some clean clothes. I was concerned when Vicky insisted on doing our laundry. We have many quick dry as well as shrinkable items, and underwear. Not everything can go into the dryer, others can go into the dryer for only a few minutes, others until they’re bone dry and while it’s second nature to me, it must have seemed very foreign to her to have so many different types of fabrics. It took some persuading to have her just work the machine and supervise. We are grateful that she still had the patience to let me take care of my own clothes as much as she did.

It would have been nice to have a view of something outside our window rather than the wall of the building next door, however this is a minor detail as we were only in the room to sleep briefly the one night we were there, the rest of the time we were out exploring and enjoying the highlights of this beautiful little town.

The location is super, being very central in the old town is ideal for a stroll at any time. Surrounded by cute shops, bars and restaurants. Also breakfast was excellent, in a bar just around the corner.

The drawback of being so central means that the bar downstairs was very noisy until late. Also the charm of the building is undeniable, but there are a few stairs to be careful about if you walk with difficulty.