A sheltered bay south of Rafina with three islets, a headless marble giant, and remarkably clean water.
A wide, sheltered bay on the east coast of Attica, a short drive down the coast from Rafina. Quiet out of season, and one of the busiest summer spots in the Mesogaia in August.
Schematic, not to scale. Distances are the sourced ones: Markopoulo about 7 km inland, Vravrona about 5 km north, Avlaki about 4 km south of the town centre.
Porto Rafti means "the tailor's port". The tailor is a statue.
On Raftis, the larger islet at the mouth of the bay, sits a colossal marble figure: an enthroned woman in heavy, elaborate drapery. She has lost her head and arms. Seen from the water at a distance, the seated silhouette with its raised stump of an arm looked to sailors like a tailor at work, and the name stuck to the whole bay.
Who she actually is has never been settled. Some argue for Regilla, wife of Herodes Atticus; others for the goddess Cybele or Rhea. The name's origin is disputed too: alongside the tailor story, scholars have proposed the Albanian rrapthi, "small plane tree", and a link to the worship of Rhea across eastern Attica.
The islets were not always empty. Archaeologists have found evidence of Mycenaean settlement on them, and the bay served the ancient demes of Prasiai, Steiria and Koroni. It stayed a working trading port until the collapse of the Roman Empire.
A darker footnote. In late April 1941, after the German invasion of Greece, this bay was one of the points from which Allied troops were evacuated. The quiet swimming beaches were an embarkation line within living memory.
The bay's shoreline is broken into several separate beaches. Avlaki is the one with the reputation.
A long sandy beach about 4 km south of the town centre, with tavernas along it and municipal facilities. It holds a permanent green-flag certification for water quality, which puts it among the cleanest bathing water in Europe.
The bay's other named beaches. We have deliberately not written descriptions of these yet rather than guess at them.
Going for the day? The beaches nearer Rafina are covered on our Rafina beaches guide, including Schinias, Kokkino Limanaki and Marikes.
There is no ferry and no train. Realistically you drive, or you take a taxi.
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South down the coast, past Vravrona. This is the obvious way and it is the only one that makes a beach day easy, because the beaches are spread along several kilometres of shoreline.
Porto Rafti sits south of the airport in the same corner of Attica, so it is a short hop rather than a cross-city trek. Renting at the airport and driving down is usually simplest.
KTEL Attikis runs the Mesogaia routes serving Markopoulo and Porto Rafti. Services thin out sharply off season and at weekends, so check before you rely on one.
Porto Rafti works best combined with what is on the road between here and Rafina.
What people ask before driving down.
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