Voutoumi Beach
Interesting facts
- In the series What We Do in the Shadows, the vampire Nadja, played by Natasia Demetriou, is introduced as Nadja of Antipaxos.
- Antipaxos is only about two miles long and one mile wide, and it forms the southernmost point of the Paxoi municipality.
- A low ridge with three summits runs along the island; the northernmost and highest, Agrilida, reaches only about 117 metres.
- Mediterranean monk seals use the sea caves of Antipaxos, notably the Kalogiris cave on the west coast, to rest and breed.
- The island and the sea around it are a Natura 2000 site, with Posidonia seagrass meadows and coralligenous reefs below about 30 metres.
- Loggerhead and green turtles and bottlenose dolphins are among the protected animals recorded in the waters around Antipaxos.
- The island's whole population, about twenty people at recent censuses, lives in a single settlement, with Agrapidia as its only harbour.
- A cape on the island is thought to take its name from a rock resembling the statue of Marshal Schulenburg in Corfu.
Why it is worth it
Voutoumi is the best-known beach of Antipaxos, a small island of about five square kilometres a few kilometres south of Paxos in the Ionian Sea. The island has only a couple of dozen permanent residents and is covered largely in vineyards, so its coast has kept a quiet, almost rural character. The beach is a curve of white pebbles at the foot of a steep green slope, and its fame rests on the colour of the sea: over the pale stones the water is so clear that boats moored offshore seem to float in the air, and the shades shift from milky white at the edge through vivid turquoise to deep blue.
The setting is simple and that is its strength. Thick Mediterranean scrub and trees come down almost to the water, and the slope behind the beach hides the rest of the island. The pebbles are bright and rounded, and when the sea is calm the visibility makes swimming here feel like snorkelling even without a mask. Nearby, the sandy beach of Vrika and the pebbly Mesovrika complete the island's short list of beaches, each in its own small bay.
Antipaxos is best treated as a day by the sea rather than a sight to tick off. Most visitors come over by boat for a few hours, and outside the busiest part of the day the beach regains the calm that gives it its character; the vineyards above, which cover so much of the island, are a reminder that this is still a farmed landscape rather than a resort.
Getting there
Voutoumi lies on Antipaxos, about 3 km south of Paxos; Préveza on the mainland is about 50 km away in a straight line. The nearest airport is Corfu International Airport (CFU), about 57 km away. The usual route is by boat: ferries run year-round from Igoumenitsa to Paxos in about an hour and a half, and in season hydrofoils and passenger boats connect Corfu with Paxos. From the port of Gaios on Paxos, sea taxis reach Antipaxos in around fifteen minutes.
On these lists
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