Talking about Greece, its beautiful places, it is impossible to ignore the Aegean Sea, one of the cleanest seas on the planet. As till now, we haven't been to Evia, we decided to devote this day to exploring this island.
This island is the second largest in Greece after Crete, but is not so popular among tourists. In other respects, it seems that the Greeks consider it a place to spend their weekends (the largest influx of local tourists occurs on Friday evenings, Saturday and Sunday). We used ferry to get there.
Evia island is adjacent to the mainland and is separated from it by two road bridges, so there is no feeling that you are on an island. Moreover, Athens is only about 80 km away. One bridge is old, only 40 meters long, the other new, 600 meters long.
The bridges are thrown across the Evripos Strait, which is the main attraction of Chalkida. The fact is that it has a very fast current - 12 km/h, and the most interesting thing is that the current is changing its direction to the opposite direction every 6 hours, that is, first the water flows in one direction, then to another. This phenomenon has not yet been studied. According to legend, Aristotle drowned in this strait while trying to solve this riddle. Unfortunately, we did not see how the water changes its flow, since this can be observed being in the area of the old bridge for a certain hour.
The capital city, Chalkida, we reached by ferry and went for our walk without any plans. From first glance, it was clearly somehow “not a resort.” That is, there are no taverns at every turn, crowds of walking tourists, music... I partly attributed it to the fact that we were in May, when resort life was just “swinging”, but I was also in Rhodes in early May - life there was in full swing at that time. In general, the island of Evia is not such a developed and popular resort among foreign tourists as the well-known Rhodes and Crete, but it is not so far from our home as other islands.
In Chalkida, there is a fortress with the poetic name Karababa. The fortress is located on a hill, so those who do not have a car must first walk along the embankment and then climb the footpath. From the bus station to the fortress, the journey on foot will take about an hour, taking into account the ascent along the path.
It's a historical fortress which at different times was under the rule of various empires. There is an Orthodox church on the territory of the fortress. The fortress itself has been preserved in very good condition.
Entrance to the space is free. In the tower at the opposite end from the entrance (previously used to collect and store water) there is now a small museum with exhibits - architectural elements from various periods of the city’s history: Hellenic, Byzantine, Venetian, Turkish.
You should definitely visit here because of the stunning views of the sea, the city of Chalkida, the island of Evia and the mainland of Greece with the bridge connecting them. Insanely beautiful!
There are also turtles near the paths on the outside of the fortress; we saw a very large one.
We only toured the archaeological museum from the outside because the entrance to the fortress closes at 15.00. There is no point in arriving after closing, since all the beauty is outside the doors. In the space of the fortress, there are many benches to relax in the shade. But the main thing is that the fortress offers beautiful views of Evia, Chalkida and the sea. We arrived just 30 minutes before closing. Besides us, there were 4 other people in the fortress. Silence, tranquility. We enjoyed the views, but just outside.
In addition to the fortress, Chalkida has a very lively, large, spacious embankment with a port. And the city itself, in the part where the embankment and port are, is very lively and already resembles a resort.
Evia is an island that belongs to northern Greece, and the nature here is gorgeous. The island is very green, and in the spring it is all full of flowers.
And of course, the sea - it is clean and stunningly beautiful.
Walking along the embankment, you can come to a small square, in the area of which there is a pedestrian street with many shops.
We thought about a long road to our home, so we didn't enjoy a long walk today. After eating in the tavern, we left the island.
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