Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
GETTING AROUND
By
bus
There are hourly buses daily in summer from
Karavostási to Hóra, from where further buses run to Áno
Meriá (6 daily; 30min) or Angáli beach (4 daily; 30min).
Off-season the bus to Angáli leaves you 1km away on the
road to Áno Meriá.
By car and motorcycle
It may be worthwhile renting a
car for a day - try Spyros's Motorbike Rental at Karavostási
(
T
22860 41448), which is cheaper than its counterparts in
Hóra - but generally the buses will, as a rule, take you
where you want to be. Lignós (
T
22860 41346) rents
motorcycles at the northern end of Hóra.
6
Karavostási and around
Karavostási
, the port, serves really as a last-resort base. There are several hotels and plenty
of rooms but compared to the beauty of Hóra, just above, hardly any atmosphere. The
closest
beach
, other than the narrow main shingle strip, is the smallish, sand-and-pebble
Várdhia
, signposted just north over the tiny headland. Some fifteen minutes' walk south
lies
Livádhi
, a family beach with tamarisk trees. Just before Livádhi are the much smaller
but more romantic beaches of
Vitséntzou
and
Poundáki
, reached by steep paths.
Touted as the island's most scenic beach,
Kátergo
is a 300m stretch of pea-gravel with
two offshore islets, on the southeastern tip of the island. Most visitors come on a boat
excursion from Karavostási or Angáli, but you can also get there on foot (20min) from
the hamlet of Livádhi, itself a fifteen-minute dirt-road walk inland from Livádhi beach.
Be warned, though, that it's a rather arduous and stony trek, with a final 80m descent
on loose-surfaced paths; there is no shade on the walk or the beach. The narrow sea
passage between the beach's southern cliffs and the right-hand islet,
Makrí
, has very
strong currents and swimming through is not recommended.
ACCOMMODATION AND EATING
KARAVOSTÁSI AND AROUND
Kalýmnios
T
22860 41146.
Fish taverna said to have the
freshest seafood on the island. Whether crab claws, fried
calamari (€10) or lobster spaghetti, you order and pay by
the kilo. Also open for breakfast.
April-Oct daily
7am-1am.
Livadhi Camping
Livádhi
T
22860 41204,
W
www
.folegandros.org.
A friendly and more than adequate
campsite with a café-restaurant, minimarket, and a rental
office for cars and motorbikes. T
hey
also rent apartments
for two people (€50). June-Sept.
€9
Vardia Bay
Várdhia
T
22860 41277,
W
vardiabay.com.
Grand hotel with luxurious rooms and studios in a great
location above the jetty, right on the beach of the same
name. Everything is on the large side: from the rooms and
the verandas
with
their stupendous seaviews to the
breakfast buffet.
€80
Hóra
The island's real character and appeal are rooted in the spectacular
HÓRA
, perched on a
cliff-edge plateau, a steep 3km from the port. Locals and foreigners mingle at the cafés
and tavernas under the trees of the five adjacent squares, passing the time undisturbed
by traffic, which is banned from the village centre. Towards the northern cliff-edge and
entered through two arcades, the defensive core of the medieval
kástro
neighbourhood
is marked by ranks of two-storey residential houses, with almost identical stairways and
slightly recessed doors.
From the cliff-edge Poúnda square, where the bus stops, a path zigzags up - with
views along the northern coastline - to the wedding-cake church of
Kímisis tis
Theotókou
, whose unusual design includes two little fake chapels mounted astride the
roof. The church, formerly part of a nunnery, is on the gentlest slope of a pyramidal
hill with 360m cliffs dropping to the sea on the northwest side and is a favourite spot
for watching some of the Aegean's most spectacular sunsets. Beyond and below it hides
the
Khryssospiliá
, a large cave with stalactites and ancient inscriptions, centre of a
strange ancient youth cult, but closed to the public for archeological excavations.
However, a minor, lower grotto can still be visited by excursion boat from the port.
Towards the top of the hill are a few fragments of the ancient Paleókastro.