Most people come to Evia on a day trip from Athens, cross the famous bridge over the Euripus strait where the current reverses direction 4 times a day, and turn back before dark. Stay a few nights and a completely different Greece opens up: a long green island with a mountainous spine, thermal springs that have been drawing visitors since antiquity, fishing villages where the octopus dries on a line outside the kitchen, and gorges that end at beaches with no one on them. These are the corners our team on the ground keeps coming back to.
Start the Day by the Water
In Edipsos, the morning belongs to the waterfront kafeneions. Order a Greek coffee, find a chair facing the gulf, and watch the fishing boats come in while the town wakes up slowly around you. The thermal waters made this a resort for Athenian society for generations, Churchill and Aristotle Onassis both took the cure here, and the pace of the place has never quite shaken that unhurried feeling. We love the older kafeneions along the seafront, marble-topped tables where the same families have sat every morning for decades. Linger. Nobody is waiting for the table.
Eat Where the Locals Eat
The harbour tavernas in Edipsos are the real thing. Walk until you find one where the fishing boats are tied up directly outside, sit down, and ask what came in this morning. Grilled sea bream, fried calamari, octopus on the grill with a squeeze of lemon, a plate of horta, and a carafe of local white wine. That is the meal. For something further afield, drive up into the mountains to Steni, the most popular village in central Evia, where the tavernas by the river serve fresh trout, the only spot on the island where it is caught. Order a trout and a salad and eat at a table a metre from the water. On the way back, stop at any bakery you pass for a koulouri and a piece of local thyme honey, the kind that crystallises in the jar and tastes of the mountain it came from.
The Gorge Everyone Should Walk
The Dimosaris Gorge in the south of the island is one of the great short walks in Greece and almost nobody outside the country has heard of it. The trail follows a river down through waterfalls, plane trees, and rocky narrows, crossing the water a dozen times before it opens out at the coastal village of Kalliani where the sea is cold and clear and you will not want to leave. Allow 3 to 4 hours for the full descent. Bring swimming things and something to eat, because there is nothing at the bottom except a beach and the sea.
Soak in the Thermal Springs
Edipsos has been famous for its hot springs since antiquity and they are still the main reason Greeks come here. The water runs directly out of the earth at around 80 degrees and the spa hotels along the seafront pipe it into thermal pools, jets, and treatment rooms. You do not need to be staying in a hotel to use them: most sell day access to the pools, and an afternoon soaking in thermal water with the sea 30 metres away and a cold beer to follow is a very good afternoon. Thermae Sylla is the grandest of the old belle epoque hotels and the most fully equipped, but the smaller bath houses along the waterfront are cheaper and feel more like the real thing.
Get Off the Road
When you want to escape the town, the island opens up. Drive north to Cape Artemision, the windswept headland where one of the great naval battles of antiquity was fought against the Persian fleet in 480 BCE, and where the famous bronze Poseidon, now in the Athens National Museum, was dredged up from the seabed in 1926. The cape is dramatic, the sea views go on forever, and there is almost never anyone there. In the far south, the mysterious Dragon Houses on the slopes of Mount Ochi, ancient stone structures of enormous slabs whose purpose nobody has fully explained, are strange and worth the detour.
This Is the Island We Love
Evia is the Greece that Greeks go to, the one that does not need to perform for anyone. The hot springs and the cold sea after them, the trout by the river in Steni, the gorge that ends at a beach with nobody on it, the kafeneion table you mean to leave after 1 coffee and do not. You can explore our Evia destination page to start planning your own trip.
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