A dream destination in the heart of the Mediterranean attracted crowds every summer until the 1980s. However, it is now completely abandoned.
It is a time difficult to imagine for the rare tourists who approach it today, but under the Mediterranean sun and on the shores of the Aegean Sea, this place was once one of the most popular sites in this very touristy country. . Its fine sandy beaches and the crystal clear waters of a pine-forested islet, connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus, were stormed every summer by hordes of vacationers from the capital just a few hours’ drive away.
Hotels, restaurants, nightclubs… Everything was planned to accommodate them as best as possible. We danced until the end of the night in the fashionable nightclubs, we slept in elegant bungalows in the heart of the pine forest and we sunbathed on deckchairs while admiring the postcard landscape.
This Eden on the shores of the Aegean Sea was none other than Pézonissi, a tiny island located near Eretria on the west coast of Euboea, north of the Greek capital, Athens. Nicknamed “the island of dreams” in the 1970s, the destination was a must for trendy youth and Athenian high society. After a fanfare debut, her star gradually faded, until she sank into total oblivion in the early 2000s.
How can we explain such a change of fortune? The tortuous story of Pézonissi is in fact emblematic of the excesses of mass tourism in Greece, judges today the Greek site Ethnos, taken from the former political newspaper of the same name. The decline began in the 1980s, when aging infrastructure was not renovated, the clientele changed and competition from other destinations increased.
But it was above all a legal and administrative imbroglio which dealt the final blow. The island, owned by the municipality of Eretria, has seen a succession of changes in status, precarious leases, aborted takeover projects and legal proceedings. Result: no one really knows who does what there and who owns the buildings. The ruins of old hotels, restaurants and nightclubs are falling into tatters in the middle of nature regaining its rights.
The sinking of the “Island of Dreams” thus spectacularly illustrates the disastrous consequences of uncontrolled tourism, poorly managed by public authorities, and solely motivated by short-term interests, judges the Greek news site. A model of predatory development which has disfigured many remarkable natural sites in the Greek archipelago from the 1960s. Pézonissi, the former “island of dreams” has become one of its sad symbols.