Porto Roma Beach – beautiful beach in a quiet place on the island of Zakynthos in Greece, but in the sea right off the shore there are biting fish
Our trip to Porto Roma Beach, which is located in the southwest of the island of Zakynthos, on its farthest side, closer to the south. The road from the village of Argasi, where we started from the Locanda hotel, to this beach was 12 kilometers, and passed through various picturesque areas of the island and pretty villages, which in itself is interesting, curious and not at all boring.
Arriving at our destination, we parked in the free parking lot, which is located right next to the beach. The parking lot itself is not some kind of horizontal space rolled into asphalt, but simply random empty spaces under coniferous, olive and eucalyptus trees. There are few cars, and those that exist are mostly from guests of the nearby mini-hotel called Porto Roma Studios.
After taking just a few steps down the concrete slope, we found ourselves on the beach. Just at this point there is a fresh water shower.
Further, if you go to the right, then on that side there is a cove for small boats. And on the left is the main beach.
On the beach, sun loungers with umbrellas are located as follows: one row is located right next to the water, and two more rows are slightly higher, on a hill.
Note. Once upon a time there was only one row of sun loungers near the water, and other rows were impossible to install due to the steep slope of the shore. But then, probably having received permission from the authorities, part of the slope was cut off by construction equipment, thereby creating an additional horizontal surface. And on this artificially created step two more rows of sun loungers with umbrellas were placed. After that, there were more comfortable places for vacationers on the beach, but aesthetically the beach did not lose anything, and even, on the contrary, thanks to the stepped placement of sun loungers, this whole structure became somewhat similar to an amphitheater.
There are sun loungers with umbrellas, they are paid, but the prices are moderate. You can order food and drinks, they will be brought from the restaurant directly to your sun lounger.
There is no crowd of vacationers here, but we didn’t want to stop here and walked along the shore a little further. There, at the very end of the beach, there is a cafe called Nikos Beach Bar Restaurant, which is located right by the water, and near it there are also sun loungers with umbrellas, and that’s where we settled down.
![Greece, Zakynthos island – Porto Roma Beach](/uploads/posts/2024-05/medium/1716549310_greece_zakynthos_porto-roma-beach-4.jpg)
The beach is pebbly. The entrance to the sea is normal. The bottom is sandy mixed with stones. But there are no sea urchins – that’s good. The water is clean and transparent, however, this is probably the case everywhere on the island of Zakynthos, and indeed in the Ionian Sea in general.
Due to the absence of a large number of hotels in the beach area, the beach is half-empty and quiet - and this is good: there is no unnecessary noise and human oversaturation. Apparently for this reason, some marine life thrives in coastal waters. For example, to our surprise, for the first time we encountered the fact that, standing in the water near the shore of the beach, we can find unafraid OCTOPUSES crawling out of curiosity right to our feet. One such fearless octopus was even filmed while it was crawling at our feet (see video below). An interesting sight!
Another plus is that there are almost no children here. Don’t think that we don’t like children, but children are simply different and very often with a terrible upbringing, screaming like crazy with or without reason, running around so that sand flies from under their feet onto the faces of lying vacationers, and their brainless parents even They don’t make comments to their beloved offspring as if they were gods. But there is no such wildness on this beach, perhaps precisely because of the lack of a sandy beach, which is often the main criterion when choosing a hotel for people with children.
The only thing that bothered us was that it was unsafe to stand here for a long time in the water - the fish started biting. The fish are small, but schooling and they are very arrogant. As soon as they see a motionless body, they begin to gradually gather near the person and then attack. Their favorite delicacy is, first of all, sores and abrasions from wounds on the human body. Even if your wound was almost healed, these CANNIBAL FISH will definitely tear off and eat the sore, tearing the wound to the flesh. And if there are no wounds, then they target moles and even hair, trying to tear them off. They jerk sharply and unexpectedly, the feeling at this moment is as if you are receiving a short-term point discharge of electric current.
As we understand, in order to avoid being bitten, you need to constantly move in the water, especially if there are wounds on the body. The fish hardly attacked the moving body.
As already noted, the water is clean. But in some parts of the coast it sometimes changes color a little. This happens because of the creativity of people who find blue clay at the bottom, take it out and spread it on themselves. In a calm state, this clay hides under a layer of bottom sand and does not tint the water, but as soon as someone finds it, everyone immediately becomes a body artist, and we are no exception, we also painted ourselves.
![Greece, Zakynthos island – Porto Roma Beach](/uploads/posts/2024-05/medium/1716549297_greece_zakynthos_porto-roma-beach-5.jpg)
All these actions, first of extracting and smearing blue clay on oneself, and then of washing it off the body, lead to the water becoming cloudy for a while. So we have ourselves to blame for this. By the way, they say that this clay has medicinal properties, but we do not have reliable information on this matter.
Well, after swimming and sunbathing, you always want to eat. There are no problems with this here. Nikos Beach Bar Restaurant is located right on the beach, right behind the sun loungers arranged in one row, just a few meters from the sea.
What can I say about the establishment? - It’s cozy, it’s very nice to sit in it, eat and admire the sea from there. There are few people, but the food there is very tasty.
![Greece, Zakynthos island – cafe Nikos Beach Bar Restaurant on the beach of Porto Roma](/uploads/posts/2024-05/medium/1716549404_greece_zakynthos_porto-roma-beach-9.jpg)
But if this is not enough for you, you can return to the beginning of the beach and eat in the beautiful restaurant at the Porto Roma Studios hotel, whose courtyard is fragrant with flowers, and the establishment itself offers an excellent view of the bay. You will not remain indifferent to such views.
![Greece, Zakynthos island – restaurant at the Porto Roma Studios hotel on Porto Roma beach](/uploads/posts/2024-05/medium/1716549468_greece_zakynthos_porto-roma-beach-17.jpg)
As for the hotel itself, to be honest, if you don’t have a long-term rental car, we wouldn’t recommend staying there. Not because the hotel is bad, no, we don’t know that, but for another reason. The thing is that if you become attached to the hotel for the entire vacation, you will become attached to this beach for the entire period. But relaxing on this beach every day is not the best option, because... there are places on the island with more beautiful beaches.
The best option is to come here with a rented car, for 1 - maximum 2 days. One day to relax on the beach and wander around the area, there is a beautiful area with very beautiful villas, olive groves and small taverns along the entire coast. And spend the second day on boat trips. And that’s it, there’s nothing else to do here, you’ll get tired of the beach.
Or another option, but again if you have a car, use the local hotel as a place to stay overnight (as a launching pad), but only subject to tempting prices for rooms, and every morning set off from here on a trip around the island by car, visiting various attractions and beaches . And if one day you find it difficult to go somewhere, then the Porto Roma Beach is always at your feet.
Well, we, pleasantly tired from our vacation, leave this beach, get on a rented horse, and soon find ourselves in another place, no less interesting.
• beautiful place away from noise
• few people and almost no children
• clean clear water on the beach
Flaws:
• annoying biting fish in the sea
Porto Roma Beach coordinates on the interactive map • Get directions
We recommend!
Arriving at our destination, we parked in the free parking lot, which is located right next to the beach. The parking lot itself is not some kind of horizontal space rolled into asphalt, but simply random empty spaces under coniferous, olive and eucalyptus trees. There are few cars, and those that exist are mostly from guests of the nearby mini-hotel called Porto Roma Studios.
![Greece, Zakynthos island – near the Porto Roma Beach parking lot](/uploads/posts/2024-05/medium/1716549025_greece_zakynthos_porto-roma-beach-1.jpg)
![Greece, Zakynthos island – Porto Roma Beach](/uploads/posts/2024-05/medium/1716549006_greece_zakynthos_porto-roma-beach-2.jpg)
![Greece, Zakynthos island – descent to Porto Roma Beach](/uploads/posts/2024-05/medium/1716549148_greece_zakynthos_porto-roma-beach-14.jpg)
On the beach, sun loungers with umbrellas are located as follows: one row is located right next to the water, and two more rows are slightly higher, on a hill.
Note. Once upon a time there was only one row of sun loungers near the water, and other rows were impossible to install due to the steep slope of the shore. But then, probably having received permission from the authorities, part of the slope was cut off by construction equipment, thereby creating an additional horizontal surface. And on this artificially created step two more rows of sun loungers with umbrellas were placed. After that, there were more comfortable places for vacationers on the beach, but aesthetically the beach did not lose anything, and even, on the contrary, thanks to the stepped placement of sun loungers, this whole structure became somewhat similar to an amphitheater.
![Greece, Zakynthos island – Porto Roma Beach](/uploads/posts/2024-05/medium/1716549212_greece_zakynthos_porto-roma-beach-15.jpg)
There is no crowd of vacationers here, but we didn’t want to stop here and walked along the shore a little further. There, at the very end of the beach, there is a cafe called Nikos Beach Bar Restaurant, which is located right by the water, and near it there are also sun loungers with umbrellas, and that’s where we settled down.
![Greece, Zakynthos island – Porto Roma Beach](/uploads/posts/2024-05/medium/1716549224_greece_zakynthos_porto-roma-beach-3.jpg)
![Greece, Zakynthos island – Porto Roma Beach](/uploads/posts/2024-05/medium/1716549310_greece_zakynthos_porto-roma-beach-4.jpg)
The beach is pebbly. The entrance to the sea is normal. The bottom is sandy mixed with stones. But there are no sea urchins – that’s good. The water is clean and transparent, however, this is probably the case everywhere on the island of Zakynthos, and indeed in the Ionian Sea in general.
Due to the absence of a large number of hotels in the beach area, the beach is half-empty and quiet - and this is good: there is no unnecessary noise and human oversaturation. Apparently for this reason, some marine life thrives in coastal waters. For example, to our surprise, for the first time we encountered the fact that, standing in the water near the shore of the beach, we can find unafraid OCTOPUSES crawling out of curiosity right to our feet. One such fearless octopus was even filmed while it was crawling at our feet (see video below). An interesting sight!
Another plus is that there are almost no children here. Don’t think that we don’t like children, but children are simply different and very often with a terrible upbringing, screaming like crazy with or without reason, running around so that sand flies from under their feet onto the faces of lying vacationers, and their brainless parents even They don’t make comments to their beloved offspring as if they were gods. But there is no such wildness on this beach, perhaps precisely because of the lack of a sandy beach, which is often the main criterion when choosing a hotel for people with children.
The only thing that bothered us was that it was unsafe to stand here for a long time in the water - the fish started biting. The fish are small, but schooling and they are very arrogant. As soon as they see a motionless body, they begin to gradually gather near the person and then attack. Their favorite delicacy is, first of all, sores and abrasions from wounds on the human body. Even if your wound was almost healed, these CANNIBAL FISH will definitely tear off and eat the sore, tearing the wound to the flesh. And if there are no wounds, then they target moles and even hair, trying to tear them off. They jerk sharply and unexpectedly, the feeling at this moment is as if you are receiving a short-term point discharge of electric current.
As we understand, in order to avoid being bitten, you need to constantly move in the water, especially if there are wounds on the body. The fish hardly attacked the moving body.
As already noted, the water is clean. But in some parts of the coast it sometimes changes color a little. This happens because of the creativity of people who find blue clay at the bottom, take it out and spread it on themselves. In a calm state, this clay hides under a layer of bottom sand and does not tint the water, but as soon as someone finds it, everyone immediately becomes a body artist, and we are no exception, we also painted ourselves.
![Greece, Zakynthos island – Porto Roma Beach](/uploads/posts/2024-05/medium/1716549064_greece_zakynthos_porto-roma-beach-0.jpg)
![Greece, Zakynthos island – Porto Roma Beach](/uploads/posts/2024-05/medium/1716549297_greece_zakynthos_porto-roma-beach-5.jpg)
![]() | ![]() |
Well, after swimming and sunbathing, you always want to eat. There are no problems with this here. Nikos Beach Bar Restaurant is located right on the beach, right behind the sun loungers arranged in one row, just a few meters from the sea.
What can I say about the establishment? - It’s cozy, it’s very nice to sit in it, eat and admire the sea from there. There are few people, but the food there is very tasty.
![Greece, Zakynthos island – cafe Nikos Beach Bar Restaurant on the beach of Porto Roma](/uploads/posts/2024-05/medium/1716549390_greece_zakynthos_porto-roma-beach-8.jpg)
![Greece, Zakynthos island – cafe Nikos Beach Bar Restaurant on the beach of Porto Roma](/uploads/posts/2024-05/medium/1716549404_greece_zakynthos_porto-roma-beach-9.jpg)
![]() | ![]() |
But if this is not enough for you, you can return to the beginning of the beach and eat in the beautiful restaurant at the Porto Roma Studios hotel, whose courtyard is fragrant with flowers, and the establishment itself offers an excellent view of the bay. You will not remain indifferent to such views.
![Greece, Zakynthos island – restaurant at the Porto Roma Studios hotel on Porto Roma beach](/uploads/posts/2024-05/medium/1716549468_greece_zakynthos_porto-roma-beach-17.jpg)
![]() | ![]() |
The best option is to come here with a rented car, for 1 - maximum 2 days. One day to relax on the beach and wander around the area, there is a beautiful area with very beautiful villas, olive groves and small taverns along the entire coast. And spend the second day on boat trips. And that’s it, there’s nothing else to do here, you’ll get tired of the beach.
Or another option, but again if you have a car, use the local hotel as a place to stay overnight (as a launching pad), but only subject to tempting prices for rooms, and every morning set off from here on a trip around the island by car, visiting various attractions and beaches . And if one day you find it difficult to go somewhere, then the Porto Roma Beach is always at your feet.
Well, we, pleasantly tired from our vacation, leave this beach, get on a rented horse, and soon find ourselves in another place, no less interesting.
VIDEO: Our trip to Porto Roma Beach
Advantages and disadvantages of the beach
Advantages:• beautiful place away from noise
• few people and almost no children
• clean clear water on the beach
Flaws:
• annoying biting fish in the sea
Porto Roma Beach coordinates on the interactive map • Get directions
Summary
If you ever visit Zakynthos, we recommend that you don’t stay on the same beach - it’s boring, but instead rent a car and travel around the island, moving from one beach to another. And a beach like Porto Roma should be in your collection.We recommend!