A swim safari in mid-July around the Sporades archipelago – 130 kilometres north of Athens – is surprisingly uncrowded, despite taking in where Mamma Mia was filmed.
It’s not much past 9am on Alonissos in the Sporades islands, off the east coast of Greece. The sun is high in a cloudless sky, the temperature is pushing 30 degrees, and the surface of the Aegean Sea is beguilingly calm.
But not for long – as 15 swimmers in brightly coloured caps dive off a boat and begin furiously churning through the water, making their way along the rocky cliffs wrapped around Alonissos.
