Papafragas

At Papafragas the sea has cut a long slot into the soft white volcanic rock, leaving a channel a few metres wide and perhaps fifty long, with vertical walls and a partly collapsed roof, ending in a small pocket of sand. Seen from the clifftop the water inside glows an improbable blue against the pale stone. Pirates are said to have moored inside where their boats were invisible from the sea, and the name refers to a priest who enclosed the land. A steep and eroded path drops through a gap in the rock to the water; it is genuinely dangerous and has been closed at times after falls. Adjacent to the car park stand the remains of Filakopi, a Bronze Age town occupied from the third millennium BC.

What you actually see

• The blue channel - a narrow slot of vivid water between rock walls.
• The collapsed arches - roof sections fallen in along the inlet.
• The clifftop viewpoints - open ledges looking straight down.
• Filakopi - Bronze Age town remains beside the site.

When to go

Midday, when sun reaches into the channel and lights the water most intensely; May to September for warm swimming if you go down. Wind and swell make the inlet unsafe.

Honest expectations

The descent is steep, loose and unprotected, with fatal falls recorded, and it is often better to view from above only. There are no railings at the clifftop either. Parking is a small gravel area and there are no facilities.

Nearby

Pollonia and the Kimolos ferry are minutes east; Sarakiniko lies west along the north coast.