Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Beyond Atsítsa, you can head back across the centre of the island on a good dirt road
through the woods, or carry on around the coast, through an area devastated by forest
fire in 2007 and still characterized by charred stumps.
Áyios Fokás
, in the heart of this
area, is a quiet, sandy beach that makes a great lunch spot; the descent through woods
to deeply indented
Péfkos
, the best of the southwest-coast bays with a fine, long,
sandy beach, offers spectacular views.
EATING AND DRINKING
MERÓI
10
Perasma
T
22220 92911.
Excellent, reasonably priced
taverna at the junction of the airport road not far from
Palamári; apparently in the middle of nowhere, but with
plenty of custom from local air-force families. Family-style
cooking based on local produce, much of it organic and
produced in the taverna's own fields, served beneath a
shady awning.
Daily lunch & dinner.
Taverna tis Kira Kalis
Áyios Fokás.
A wonderfully out-
of-the-way lunch spot, with octopus and sardines thrown
on a charcoal grill on the beach and simple Greek home-
style cooking. Lush vines and pot plants compensate for the
burnt slopes roundabout.
Daily lunch & dinner.
Vounó
South of Skýros Town you turn of at
Aspoús
, where there's a decent, grey-sand beach, to
reach
Vounó
. Much of this southern half of the island, especially as you ascend
Mount
Kóhylas
, is almost eerily barren, home only to goats and a few stunted trees, but it's here
also - high on the mountain - that you're most likely to see wild Skyrian horses and other
wildlife, including abundant Eleonora's falcon. En route there's a narrow pebble strand at
Kalamítsa
, and a slightly better beach at
Kolymbádha
. The one sight down here is Rupert
Brooke's grave at
Trís Boúkes
, a simple marble tomb inscribed with his most famous poem,
The Soldier
(“If I should die, think only this of me/That there's some corner of a foreign
field/That is for ever England…”). The grave is very hard to spot: follow the turning to the
naval base for just over 1km and it lies in an olive grove of to the left of the road.
EATING AND DRINKING
VOUNÓ
Ì
O Pappous ki Ego
T
22220 93200.
“My Grandfather
and I”, on the road approaching Kalamítsa, serves traditional
Skyrian dishes such as fried bread with Skyrian cheese, and at
weekends spit-roasted lamb and
kokorétsi
, plus fish, grills,
pastas and risotto. Classier than your average Greek taverna,
with mains around €10.
Daily lunch & dinner.
Mouries
Fléa
T
22220 93555.
Big, traditional taverna in
this tiny hamlet on the road between Aspoús and Kalamítsa,
serving local lamb and wine under the namesake mulberries.
It's very popular at weekends when they often have live Greek
music, and over the road they run a Skyrian Horse Centre, with
riding and pony-and-trap rides.
Daily lunch & dinner.
Évvia
The second largest of the Greek islands after Crete,
ÉVVIA (Euboea)
- separated only by
a narrow gulf from central Greece - often feels more like an extension of the mainland
than an entity in its own right. At
Halkídha
, the old drawbridge spans a mere 40m
channel where Évvia was mythically split from Attica and Thessaly by a blow from
Poseidon's trident. Easy access from Athens means that in summer Évvia can seem
merely a beach annexe for Athens and the mainland towns across the Gulf.
Nevertheless, Évvia
is
an island, often a very beautiful one, and in many ways its
problems - long distances to cover, poor communications, few concessions to tourism
- are also its greatest attractions, ensuring that it has remained out of the mainstream of
tourism. Exceptionally fertile, Évvia has always been a quietly prosperous place that would
manage pretty well even without visitors. The classical name, Euboea, means “rich in
cattle”, and throughout history it has been much coveted. Today agriculture still thrives,
with plenty of local goat and lamb on the menu, along with highly rated local retsina.
Évvia divides naturally into three sections, with just a single road connecting the
northern and southern parts to the centre. he
south
is mountainous, barren and
