Chora - Alonissos Greece

Alonissos Holidays & Beaches Guide.

A holiday on Alonissos offers excellent beaches both deserted and full of amenities, good food and wine for the evenings and lots to do.

Welcome to our Greek Island of Alonissos holiday guides, walks and photos. We went on holiday to Alonissos during the last couple of weeks of June i.e. just before the Greek summer holiday season kicked off and really liked the island a lot as perhaps can be seen by the vast number of photos we took during our holiday there. If you enjoy walking then Alonissos has lots of paths many of which are way marked and also they are mostly clear of heavy undergrowth and thus very useable - also there are an extensive amount of tracks to hike along too.

Alonissos beaches are mostly pebble/sand and can quite often involve a bit of a walk/climb to visit - some really only accessible by boat in fact - others by track or path. With just a little effort you can easily find your own private bit of beach and therefore wear as little or as much as you wish whilst sunbathing. The sea around Alonissos's coasts is unbelievably clear and very colourful and snorkellers should find it a delightful experience to be in.
There is no airport on the island, just a heliport, so the way most tourist travel to Alonissos is via hydrofoil or ferry usually from Sciathos - it's around a 65 minute trip by hydrofoil. Alonissos's neighbouring holiday island of Skopelos is only around 15 minutes away by hydrofoil but the boats do leave quite early each morning - at time of writing this was at 06:15, 06:45 and 07:15 - then a gap to 11:30.

Alonissos Buses and Taxis and Ferries. Taxis operate out of Patitiri down by the harbour - remember it is essential that your taxi fare is agreed before you go.
The bus (only one bus does it all) goes to Chora and in the morning and at time of writing was leaving at 0900, 1015 and hourly until 1515, once the main holiday season is in full swing they operate a service in the evening as well; there were only two trips to Steni Vala leaving at 0945 and then 1445. These times may well have changed now but do offer an idea of frequency.
Car Hire. (and noisy scooters too I suppose). There is not a great deal of metal road service on the island, the main road goes from Patitiri to the top of the island - Gherakas Bay, from Patitiri to Steni Vala and onto Aghios Dhimitrios, and also from Patitiri to the Old Town Chora. There are other bits of metal surface but basically the rest of the island is accessed by dirt tracks - and although these tracks are shown on the maps as driveable we did walk quite a few of them and the surfaces are not too good - ok maybe for 4-wheel drive but not so good for small cars with low ground clearance. There was little sign that the authorities were skimming the tracks regularly and many showed deep ruts from water damage over the winter period. Car hire easily available from Patitiri where for example we paid 90 Euros for 3 days - but the insurance is not brilliant since best we could find was a 600 Euro excess if the car was damaged or an accident was our fault etc. Scooters were around 12 Euros a day and again there were several hire places in Patitiri. Certainly these prices would have ever increased of course.

Alonissos Snakes, lizards, jellyfish, sea-urchins, bees, wasps and mosquitos. We saw a few whip snakes - sadly several on the road where they had been squashed - but am pleased to say that we did swerve and avoided the one that crossed in front of our car on one occasion. We saw several more on the tracks and paths doing what snakes do - i.e. dozing in the sunshine - but they quickly slithered off into the undergrowth. We did not see any vipers although we did walk in the more remote and higher parts of the island - neither did we ever see any of the small snakes which are apparently found in the grass and undergrowth and which have a bite not that nice to receive. We did not see any jellyfish or sea-urchins at all. Mosquitoes were appearing more frequently during our second week on Alonissos and we started getting a few bites around our ankles especially in the evening whilst using the quay side tavernas.

Some of Skopelos famous green-eyed bees must have grabbed a free ride over to Alonissos on the ferry since we did see a few of them around but they only nip a little and are not a problem at all and certainly should not be swatted/killed - just ask them politely to go away or something since they are a lovely looking bee. There were a few wasps around and these were a nuisance at times particularly on the beach - they seemed to go for us mostly whilst we were still wet from being in the sea and not bother us once we had dried off somewhat. Also there were "beach-flies" which also seemed keen to have a nibble now and again.

Patitiri, Steni Vala, Chora and Rousoum Patitiri is the main port on the island and has a quite nice little harbour with lots of shops, tavernas and cafes - and also a pebble beach. One side of the harbour is somewhat spoilt by the new docks which the large ferrys use - this is a large dusty concrete area. The tavernas offer a good selection of food but trying to avoid chips with everything is the usual pain - also and of course related to this (chips) is the lack of vegetables available with your meal, although vegetables are on sale in the shops so freely available to the tavernas should they wish to offer them. As you walk round in the evenings the various taverna owners sometimes approach you to try to get you into their establishments but they are not at all pushy and easily accept a "no thank you".

Rousoum is very close to Patitiri and easily walkable in 10 or 15 minutes - Rousoum has a pebble beach which is quite heavily used by the local islanders especially around late afternoon onwards. It has several tavernas along the front of the beach where it is great to get out of the heat and relax a little with a drink or whatever.

Steni Vala is a small Alonissos town which once again has a quite small pebble beach (although there is a great little beach just a small walk away round the coast which we have described on our walks page). Popular with yacht flotillas quite a few yachts and boats overnight/stay here and the taverna prices reflect this a little.

Votsi is a short walk away from Patitiri - the village has a nice fishing harbour, a small beach and several tavernas.

Chora (the Old Town) is located quite high up above Patitiri - probably nearly everybody visiting Alonissos Island on holiday will take a trip up here to walk round the narrow streets. These photos were taken around this pictureseque small town and show how nice it is there. The town was badly damaged by earthquake but a lot of rebuilding has and still is being carried out - apparently British and German buyers are busy snapping up the houses and not so many islanders live up here any more. Chora has several tavernas some of which offer really good views of the surrounding hills and countryside. There are morning and evening bus services from Patitiri up to Chora but by far the nicest way to go there is to walk up the moni path - which is a real pleasure since the well-marked path is in an excellent condition and very scenic/pretty.

Alonissos Walking and Hiking - with walks to beaches, out in the hills and to gorges easily possible.

Alonissos has a good network of paths many of which are quite well signposted and couple this with an Alonissos map like the Topo 1:25.000 (WGS84) then getting lost should not be an issue - the Topo map is available for sale both on Sciathos and on Alonissos itself. When we placed path and track GPS tracking back onto the Topo map we found nearly all routes to be very accurate apart from the Kastanarema Gorge. You can also get a smaller map which shows many of the paths etc. - Road Edition no.219 ISBN 960-8481-96-1 but this is 1:40.000 and unlike the Topo does not include the path numbers. Various locations and places names (as often happens on Greek Islands) can be spelt quite differentl depending on the map in use so all below are based on the Topo map - also we have sometimes used area names as opposed to place names on our walks because there are no specific places to name. As far as the actual walking areas available - the top of the island has few possibilities with just one tarmac road going up to Gherakas Bay but there are plenty of paths and tracks from Kavakia south (as well as the Kastanarema Gorge to the east). Please see further below for our topics on walks on the island.

Alonissos Beach Guide to several of the beaches worth visiting whilst on holiday on this lovely Greek Island including Alonissos naturist beaches.

We enjoy naturist sunbathing and swimming and this was easily possible on Alonissos but bear in mind that beaches that are ok for this one day may not be the next - it depends on who gets to the beach first especially on the small/more isolated beaches. Some of the beaches on Alonissos are only accessible by not too well surfaced dirt tracks or sometimes only paths - but of course it is great exploring coastlines on paths and tracks and discovering your own isolated tiny cove or beach - you never know - maybe nobody has ever been there before. This does mean that these more isolated Alonissos beaches can be used for some peacefull nude swimming and sunbathing if you wish since you will probably be the only people around.

Aghalou Laka

Aghios Dhimitrios

Aghios Petros

Aghios Dhimitrios

Cape Kokinokastro

Cape Marpouneta

Faros Rocks

Ghialia

Kondos Kavos

Lefto Ghialos

Meghali Amos

Meghalos Mourtias

Mikros Mourtias

Milia beach

Mourtitsa

Faros beach

Patitiri beach

Plakes beach.

Spartines beach

Tourkoneri Bay

Tzortzi Ghialos

Vithisma beach

Vrisitsa beach

Perhaps look at our other Alonissos topics - Alonissos Tours & Walks or Alonissos beach walks and/or Kastanarema Gorge Walk - something to try if you get bored with loafing around on all those beautiful Alonissos beaches?
Of possible interest are Alonissos's Greek Island Neighbours - please see our Skopelos Holidays Guide and our Skiathos Holidays Guide.

Other Resources
Alonissos Greece Travel Guide from Greek Island Postcards
Alonissos by Greeka