A guide to Sithonia in shoulder season.

Sithonia in late summer holds a particular kind of light. The August crowds have thinned to the locals and the slow travellers; the sea is at its warmest of the year — twenty-five, twenty-six degrees by the second week of September; the pine forests behind the coast still smell of resin warmed all summer.

Most years we keep Anthoula House open into mid-October. The reason is simple: the weeks between the first Saturday of September and the second of October are, for our money, the best of the year on this coast.

The water keeps the heat the air loses. By dawn the temperature has dropped enough to need a layer; by ten the sea is bath-warm; by sunset the village square fills with the people who actually live in Sarti. Restaurants take reservations again. Beach tavernas keep one waiter, and they remember your face.

What we send shoulder-season guests toward, in roughly the order we'd do it ourselves:

Mornings on Tristinika or Karydi rather than Sarti beach proper — both are five degrees more sheltered from the late-summer meltemi, and Karydi is the kind of cove that rewards an early start with thirty minutes of empty water.

Afternoons inland. The pine trail above Sarti runs for ninety minutes if you take the eastern loop; the higher view opens onto Mount Athos at the right hour. Bring water and walking shoes — the path is rocky.

Evenings at Mouries or back at the Sarti harbour. By 21:00 the locals are out, the catch is being weighed, and tables are easier to come by than they are in August.

Sundays we send to the Vourvourou archipelago. By late September the day-trip boats are quieter; private skippers can be hired by the half-day for a fraction of August prices, and the Diaporos lagoon is at its clearest of the year.

The thing about shoulder season on Sithonia is that it doesn't feel like a discount. The light is its own argument. The water is the warmest it'll be all year. The locals have their village back. We think of it as the proper season — August is the anomaly.