Elafonisos

**A short ferry from Pounta — and the timing matters more than the getting there.** ✅ **Getting there**: drive to **Pounta** on the coast (about an hour and a half from Monemvasia), then a **ten-minute ferry** that runs regularly **and carries cars** — so you can take your own vehicle over, which helps because the beaches are some way from the harbour. ⚠ **At peak you queue**, since ferry capacity is limited. ✅ **When to go**: **June and September are ideal** — warm water and a relatively quiet island. ⚠ **And avoid the second half of August** at all costs if you want quiet: the island is very small, Simos fills with Greek campers and day visitors, and the parking, roads and tavernas all choke. ✅ **On any day**: **take the first ferry of the morning** — you reach the beach before nine, find it nearly empty with the light at its best, and leave in the afternoon as it fills.

**Because they are what makes the beach — and damaging them damages the thing you came for.** ✅ **How dunes work**: the sand at Simos **moves constantly** with wind and sea. The low plants you see on the dunes — scrubby and unattractive-looking — are **what holds the sand with their roots**. Without them the sand disperses, the beach retreats and the bays change shape. ✅ **Hence the protection**: the area falls within the protected-sites network, and **walking, driving and camping on the dunes are forbidden**. ⚠ **What actually happens when the rule is broken**: every footstep breaks small plants and opens a gap in the surface, **and thousands of footsteps accumulate** into bare tracks the sand escapes from with the first wind. The damage **is not repaired in a single season**. ✅ **What you do**: **walk on the wet sand or on the marked paths**, **park only where permitted**, **do not camp on the dunes**, and **take your rubbish away** — these are not environmental formalities but the condition of the beach continuing to exist.