Evia

ΑAn island with a bridge

Evia is the second-largest Greek island after Crete, and almost nobody treats it as an island — because at Chalkida the water narrows to forty metres and you simply drive across. That strait, the Euripus, does something strange: the current reverses direction roughly every six hours, then becomes irregular for a few days each month, and Aristotle is said to have spent time trying to explain it. People still lean on the railing of the old bridge to watch the water run the wrong way.

The island is long and thin — about 180 kilometres from the Cavo d'Oro in the south to Cape Artemisio in the north — with a mountain spine down the middle and two very different coasts. The Aegean side is open and rough; the side facing the mainland is sheltered, shallow and lined with villages. The north was badly burned in the wildfires of August 2021, which took a huge area of pine forest around Istiaia; it is regrowing, and you will drive through blackened slopes above green ones.

ΒThe south: Karystos, Ochi and the dragon houses

Karystos sits under Mount Ochi at the southern end, a nineteenth-century grid of a town with a Venetian tower, Bourtzi, on the seafront and the ruined Castello Rosso above it. The mountain behind is famous for two things: the cipollino marble quarried here for Roman Rome, with half-finished columns still lying on the slopes, and the drakospita — megalithic buildings of enormous dry-laid slabs whose purpose nobody has settled. The walk everyone comes for is the Dimosari gorge, which drops from the saddle below Ochi through plane trees and waterfalls to the sea at Kallianou: around ten kilometres, mostly downhill, best done with a taxi arranged at the bottom.

ΓThe north: Edipsos and the forest

Loutra Edipsou has been a spa town since antiquity — Strabo and Plutarch wrote about the springs, Sulla took the waters, and the belle-époque hotels along the front were built when this was where Athens came to be cured. Hot water still runs out of the rock and into the sea along the shore, free to anyone who wants to sit in it. Inland, the Drymonas waterfall and the monastery of Galataki above Limni are the green corners, and at Prokopi the shrine of Saint John the Russian draws one of the largest pilgrimages in Greece.

ΔThe middle: Eretria, Dirfys and Kymi

Eretria was a major ancient city, a rival of Chalkida and a founder of colonies, and the Swiss have been excavating it since the 1960s — theatre, temple, baths and the House of Mosaics are scattered through the modern town, with a good museum. Behind Chalkida, Mount Dirfys rises to 1,743 m and the village of Steni at its foot is where Athenians go for chestnuts and cold air. Kymi, on the east coast, is a balcony of a town above its own port, with the ferry to Skyros.

ΕBeaches

The Aegean coast has the wild ones: Chiliadou under a wooded cliff, Kalamos and Thapsa in the centre, and the long sands around Agia Anna and Psaropouli in the north. The sheltered side has Pefki, Nisiotissa and the shallow bays near Edipsos. In the south, Megali Ammos at Marmari and Psili Ammos are the ones Athenians use on a Rafina ferry weekend.

ΣΤGetting there

No airport and no need for one: from Athens you drive over the bridges at Chalkida in about an hour and a quarter, and ferries shortcut the journey from Rafina to Marmari and Karystos, from Agia Marina to Nea Styra, from Arkitsa to Loutra Edipsou and from Glyfa to Agiokampos. Kymi has the boat to Skyros. See ferries. On the island a car is not optional — it is 180 kilometres long with a mountain down the middle, and the north and south are effectively separate holidays.

ΖWho it is for

Drivers, walkers, people who want thermal water in winter, and anyone travelling with Greeks who will tell you Evia is where they actually go. Skip it if you want one village, one beach and no driving. It is also the obvious add-on to a trip to Athens: Eretria is an hour and a half from the Acropolis.