Asteras Glyfadas Beach and Balux Review

If you are visiting Athens from May to October, you will want to enjoy the beautiful beaches of Athens and Asteras Glyfadas Beach is one of the most well known.

Here is the information you need to know about Asteras Glyfadas (58, Leoforos Poseidonos, Glyfada):
Firstly, you should not mistake Asteras Glyfadas with Asteras Vouliagmenis. These are two equally well-known beaches in Athens that may sound almost the same to you but they are five km away from each other. 

Asteras Glyfadas is in the southern suburbs of Athens, in the area called Glyfada. It is around 30 km from the center of Athens and if you drive a car you will need around 40 minutes to arrive.

When you arrive you will find out that this is a Private beach and you will have to pay an entrance fee. This is 8 euros per person on the weekends and six euros on weekdays. There is a free parking for your car but you will have to leave the key of your car to the parking guys. Make sure you don’t leave anything of value in the car. The 8 euros that you pay will get you an umbrella and a subbed.

Now, at the area of Asteras Glyfadas Beach, there are actually 3 different places you can go. On the far left, you will find Balux, a nice cafe on the beach with a swimming pool and around 20 sunbeds.

 If you just want to drink a coffee here you don’t have to pay the entrance fee. If you want to use the swimming pool or swim in the sea and get an umbrella and a sunbed, you will have to pay the 8 euros per person.

The second place you can go is the to the right side of the beach and is called Balux House Project. 

This is an internal cafeteria on the beach where you can drink coffee or cocktails or eat. And just in front of it, you will see around 250 sunbeds and umbrellas. If the weather is good it will be full of people. To find an umbrella on weekends you will have to go there before 11 in the morning.  

Here, you can sit at your sunbed and order coffee, drinks, beers, juices, water etc. The prices are not low. As an example, the freddo espresso costs 3.6 euros.

Is the sea of Asteras Glyfadas clean to swim?

I wouldn’t bet on this. Although a lot of people swim in it, the sea looks dirty sometimes. It is obviously a beach in the densely populated coast of Athens and it’s not the cleanest beach of Greece.

If you want to see which are the cleanest beaches in Greece you have to look for the program called “blue flag”. Here is the list https://eepf.gr/el/blueflags-2016-greek-beaches-marinas.

You can also get a 3-days in Athens Travel Guide, here, which can help you enormously to plan your trip to Athens.