Alonissos Holiday Travel Photo Walk Guide for Holidays Alonissos Greece

Welcome to our holiday, travel, walking guide and photographs on Alonissos Greece. We went on holiday to Alonissos during the last couple of weeks of June 2004 and really liked the island a lot as perhaps can be seen by the vast number of photos we took during our walks.

In fact because of the number of paths available we thought it to be better for walking than Skopelos which we had visited the previous year.
As mentioned we do enjoy hiking/walking so this does perhaps colour our view of islands - 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. The 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 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 arrive is via hydrofoil or ferry usually from Sciathos - it's around a 65 minute trip by hydrofoil. Skopelos is only around 15 minutes away by hydrofoil but the boats do leave quite early each morning - currently at 06:15, 06:45 and 07:15 - then a gap to 11:30.

Buses and Taxis and Ferries. Taxis operate out of Patitiri down by the harbour and typical charges are 5 Euros to the Old Town (Chora) and 10 Euros to Steni Vala.
The bus (only one bus does it all) goes to Chora cost 90 cents and in the morning was leaving at 0900, 1015 and hourly until 1515, then from the start of our second week on holiday they operated a service in the evening as well; Steni Vala cost 1 Euro but only two trips - 0945 and then 1445
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.

Snakes, lizards, jellyfish, sea-urchins, bees, wasps and mosquito's. We saw several 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 hire 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 which is not that nice to receive. We did not see any jellyfish or sea-urchins at all.
Some of Skopelos green-eyed bees must have grabbed a free ride over on the hydrofoil/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.
The mosquitoes were appearing more and more during our second week on the island (end of June) and we started getting a few bites around our ankles in the evening whilst in the tavernas.

Patitiri, Steni Vala, Chora and Rousoum

Patitiri is the main port, 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.

A typical meal for two people of perhaps a main course plus pudding and a half litre jug of red house wine cost around 20 to 24 Euros so not too bad - and the house wines were generally very nice.
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 - has a pebble beach which is quite heavily used by the 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 place again with a quite small pebble beach (although there is a great little beach just a small walk away round the coast which we will describe on our walks page). Quite a few yachts overnight/stay here and the taverna prices reflect this a little.

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

Chora (the Old Town) is located quite high up above Patitiri - probably nearly everybody visiting the Island on holiday will take a trip up here to walk round the narrow streets. These photos were taken around this pictureseque small town.
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 is to walk the moni path which is a real pleasure since the path is in an excellent condition and very scenic/pretty.

Alonissos Holiday Walking and Hiking

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 places names (as often happens on Greek Islands) can be different 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 visit our Greek Islands page for Greece related travel and walking guides on Lesvos, Symi, Thassos, Skiathos, Mykonos, Crete, Samos, Naxos, Skopelos, Andros, Lefkas, Paros and Paxos.

GPS Readings - GPS fixes to calibrate a Topo map - using wgs84

End of the (red) tarmac road - Gherakas Bay  N39°16'17" E023°56'42"
End of the road - Tzortzi Ghialos  N39°10'12" E023°53'56"
Cape Kokino Lighthouse  N39°08'23" E023°49'46"
Paths 7, 8 +14 junction - Meghalo chorafi  N39°11'35" E023°53'35"
Aghios Konstantinos (church)  N39°12'54" E023°53'50"
Aghios Andreas (church ruins) (near Tsoukalia)  N39°10'12" E023°52'26"

Greek Island of Alonissos Holiday and Travel Guides.

Alonissos is a quiet Greek Holiday Island, not particularly scenic compared with some Greek Islands but great for beaches, food, walking and hiking.