Anthony Quinn Bay from the eastern rocks

The bay's Greek name is Vagies; everyone else calls it Anthony Quinn, after the actor who bought the land in 1961 while filming The Guns of Navarone nearby. It is a short inlet cut into a pine-topped headland, with a pebble beach at the head and slabs of dark grey rock stepping down into water that stays turquoise even on a dull day.

The rock is what makes it photographic. The eastern side is a series of natural ledges and shelves that give a session levels, leading lines and a clean edge over deep blue with not a single building in the frame — rare on this coast. A couple placed low on the ledges with the far wall of the cove behind them gets scale; placed high, they get the whole bay.

The cove opens to the north-east, so it takes the early sun head-on and the water lights from below in the first hours of the day. By midday the light is hard, the pebbles are covered in sunbeds and the boat trips are in. Late afternoon puts the western wall's shadow across the cove — kind to skin, but the water loses its colour. Spring and autumn give the clearest sea; in high summer the colour is still there, but so is everyone else.

Practical: it fills from about ten in the morning and cruise-ship days are worse, so early is not a preference but a plan. The descent is a steep paved path from a small paid car park above, the rock is slippery where it is wet, and there is no shade on the ledges — flat shoes with grip, water, and a step back from the edge.