Is Evia Worth Visiting?

Evia connects to the mainland by a bridge over a strait where the tide reverses direction every six hours, a phenomenon still debated by scientists and reportedly one Aristotle himself couldn't fully explain.

Evia, Greece's second largest island after Crete, stretches roughly 175 kilometers from a snout near the mainland in the north to a tail trailing into the Aegean in the south. Chalkida, the capital, sits at the narrowest point of the Euripus Strait and has been continuously inhabited since the Bronze Age, its Old Bridge crossing the same tidal current that puzzled ancient philosophers, and the city holds one of the oldest continuously inhabited Jewish communities in Europe.

Edipsos, on the island's northwest coast, has drawn bathers to its mineral-rich thermal springs since antiquity, once visited by Roman generals and later by figures like Winston Churchill and Aristotle Onassis, and public pools along the waterfront let anyone soak for free where warm spring water meets the sea. Further south, the ancient city of Eretria holds a well preserved theater and a museum built around a mosaic-floored house, and medieval castles at Karystos and Aliveri trace the island's later Venetian and Ottoman rule.

Mount Dirfys, the island's highest point at 1,743 meters, draws hikers to alpine terrain rare this close to Athens, and a network of trails, including the multi-day Evia Trail running roughly 120 kilometers from Eretria to Kymi, crosses forests, gorges, and mountain villages. The Lichadonisia islets off the northern coast pair clear water with pale sand reachable only by boat, and inland wineries around Karystos and central Evia produce wine from grapes grown on the island's own fertile terrain.

Evia has no airport, but its bridge connection means it's reachable from Athens by car in under two hours without a ferry, and additional car ferries cross from several mainland ports in under an hour. It suits travelers who want mountains, thermal springs, and real village life without the crowds of Greece's better known islands, and its size means a week barely covers the north, central, and southern regions, each with a distinct character of its own.