How Many Days Should I Spend on Evia?

Evia covers well over three to four days for one region, and five to seven let both the north's thermal springs and the south's mountains and beaches come together at a proper pace.

Evia fills a first day easily in Chalkida, the capital, where the Euripus Strait's tidal current, reversing direction every six hours, runs beneath the Old Bridge connecting the island to the mainland. A walk through the city's old Jewish quarter, one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities of its kind in Europe, gives real depth to a first day.

A second day belongs to Edipsos, on the island's northwest coast, where mineral-rich thermal springs have drawn bathers since antiquity, once visited by Roman generals and later by figures like Winston Churchill and Aristotle Onassis. Public pools along the waterfront let anyone soak for free where the warm spring water meets the sea.

A third day suits Eretria, holding a well preserved ancient theater and a museum built around a mosaic-floored house, along with Karystos in the south, where medieval castles trace the island's Venetian and Ottoman history.

A fourth day works well for hiking Mount Dirfys, the island's highest point at 1,743 meters, or a shorter walk through the chestnut forests around Steni village, both giving alpine terrain rare this close to Athens.

A fifth day or more suits the multi-day Evia Trail, running roughly 120 kilometers from Eretria to Kymi, or a boat trip to the Lichadonisia islets off the northern coast, reachable only by water and worth the extra effort.

Three days cover Chalkida, Edipsos, and one ancient site comfortably, five brings Mount Dirfys and Karystos into the trip properly, and seven lets the Evia Trail and the islets round things out fully. Even a short three-day visit gives a real sense of the island's springs and history, but Evia's size and range give genuine reason to plan for considerably more time than that.