Paralia-Katerini

Paralia  is a municipality in the eastern part of Greece, a great place to spend a week of your vacation. Here you will have some tips for things to do in a short time of a week, inspired from my experience that I had in that region of Greece.

First day: You may arrive in Paralia by plane, but I took a long drive by car, a driving of 10 hours or so. Even after this long drive, when arriving to this great Greece coast, you'll forget about all tiredness, and the best thing to do on the first day, especially when arriving around 10 a.m., is going to the beach and relax, by taking a bath in the great waters of Mediterranean sea. 

Of course, before going for a relaxing bath, you must find the hotel you've made a reservation before and check in. In Paralia you can find lots of 3 stars villas, that have great conditions of living in there for you vacation days. For example, when we've been there, (in the summer of 2008) we've checked in to Villa Domna, which is also very close to the beach. Also, there are lots of villas that are on the beach, from where you can reach in just a few minutes to the one of the great beaches of Greece.

After checking in, you may visit the Paralia beach or the Olympic Beach one, that is bigger than the Paralia one.

For the first day we've decided to stay and relax on the Paralia beach which was a few minutes of walking from the Domna Villa.

When evening arrives, you have lots of options of spending it, first of all by searching something to eat for dinner :) So, it's dinner time and along the beach there are a lot of restaurants with various types of foods, sea food, specific greek food, etc. Most of them have good prices, not being necessary to be rich to have a nice dinner on the beach of eastern Greece.

After having a nice dinner, you may spend the rest of the night in one of the clubs of Paralia, where the night life will never disappoints you.

Second day: The second day we've taken a walk to the Olympic Beach, which is near by Paralia, a small town with a great beach. Here you may visit the streets of Olympic Beach and admire the Mediterranean plants from the gardens of houses, you may spend lots of hours by simply relaxing on the quite beach, where are not so many people and you may take advantage of the beach restaurants which have a great sea food for a very good price.

3rd day: On this day we've been for a boat trip to Skiathos island, on the Koukounaries beach, which is the most famous beach of Skiathos. After few hours spent to the beach, we've taken a tour of Skiathos town, which has lots of small roads, hard to get or some of them impossible to get them by car, so was a real pleasure to walk on by the houses from Skiathos town.

4th day: Time to get a ride to the Katerini town. You can get there by local buses, the simplest way to get into the town. Visiting the center of the town and the park from the town center was a real pleasure, it worth to go to see the great park of this town. It's simply amazing.

5th day: Had a trip to Meteora Monasteries. Only when you are there and see them, you'll understand the meaning of their name of "suspended rocks". Is one of the largest and most important complexes of Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Greece. So, it's a worth to climb all those steps from the monastery to have a great look of the entire complex.

6th day: Had a trip to Thessaloniki town, the second largest city in Greece. Here are some tips of what to visit in this city: 

- The White Tower, which is the symbol of the city

- The Upper Town with beautiful wooden houses

- The square, shaped like a bottle, a large park lying at the north end of the square.

Of course you need lot of time to take advantage of the beauty of the town.

7th day: Being the last day of vacation, the best thing to do is getting relax again on the most large and quite beach near by Paralia, the Olympic Beach sand.

After ending this trip in this region of Greece, you'll never regret you've spent in there 7 days of vacation.


Here are some pictures from Paralia Katerini: