Parents Day Off

So now that you've heard about what I've been up to at the Westin Costa Navarino, I wanted to show you what activities my parents were up to. No, not those kinds of activities! This is a family-blog!

It was about 11AM after they dropped me off at Cocoon, and my father wanted to check out the stunning Voidokilia Beach. It was located nearby the Westin, though definitely not walkable. Luckily, we had a rental car to leave the property and check out the famous beach.

As you can see from the map below, Voidokilia Beach didn't look that difficult to find being only about 5-6 km away (about 3 miles)...

...however, the challenge was that these roads are pretty "country" and they don't have names, so you have to rely on some random signs along the road and kind of hope you're going the right way. And some of the roads are pretty narrow, so you have to be careful passing oncoming traffic.

But fortunately, we had found one of the roads that led to the beach and we found the area where everyone was parking. At first, we thought this was the beach, but we were facing the wrong direction.

From there, you had to walk up over a small sand dune and then you finally saw the bright blue color of the shallow bay.

The beach is crescent shaped and almost enclosed by large cliff areas.

The best part of this beach is that the water is very shallow so you can walk out pretty far without having to really swim.

There's even a castle up at the top of one of the cliffs where you can get some stunning views of the beach below.

Unfortunately, we didn't bring an umbrella to hide from the intense July sun, so after a few hours, we decided to head out. Along the road back to the main road, we passed by a little stand that sold cold drinks and frozen yogurt. So we stopped to relax a bit in the shade and hammock. We met a nice Greek couple from Athens who we chatted with for a bit as we finished our frozen yogurt.

They actually suggested we drive south along the main road to check out the town of Pylos. So we took their advice and turned right down the road.

The drive to Pylos was stunning as you saw the Navarino Bay, though my mother did panic from my father's driving on the the windy mountainside road.

When we arrived in the central commercial area, we found a charming little square surrounded by small bakeries, shops and cafes. We had some souvlaki for a late afternoon 4PM snack and enjoyed the wonderful fact that we were thousands of miles from home in a beautiful coast town in Greece.