I know, that was my first thought too. That’s a lot of vowels! Ha! Heading east from Delphi I made my way to the big and narrow island of Euboea. Access to the island is really easy, you just drive across a short bridge into the city of Chalcis and there you are. I’m not staying in Chalcis, but I did stop for a minute to check out the archeology museum there.

The museum focused on the culture of the whole island, so there was a pretty big variety of things, but overall it was a really good museum. Some of the artifacts here were surprisingly well preserved. This piece below is a depiction of a kings ascent to divine status.

Here are the Euboeans consulting the oracle at Delphi. In the center is the omphalos stone at the center of the universe. This piece was at the Eretria Archeology Museum, though, which leads me right into the next stop I made, Eretria.

I stopped for only one night in Eretria because I wanted to see the ruins of ancient Eretria scattered throughout the town. They sounded really cool, but they ended up not being anything to write home about… even though I’m writing home about them right now. Ha! The exception was the theatre.

All of the ruins, including the theatre, were closed. Luckily they were all small and I was able to get some quick pics through the fences.

Euboea is a long slender island that runs north and south and I’m heading almost to the southern tip. On the way to the next town, though, I decided to do a quick hike to see the Dragon Houses of Styra.

High up in the hills above the village of Styra are these structures made out of rocks. No one knows what they are though. Houses, temples, fortifications, it’s a big mystery. They all have these really unique vented roofs, though, which led locals to create legends that they were houses built by dragons.

Archeologists apparently found some pottery shards around them which dates them to the archaic period, sometime between the 8th and 6th century BC, but that’s it. The people who made them and for what purpose remain a mystery.

I thought this was going to be a quick visit, but I looked at the map on my hiking app and noticed there’s a castle at the top of the mountain that doesn’t show up on the Googlemap. So off I went, of course, up to the top to check it out. It looks to me to be associated with the Dragon Houses, but there’s no information about it.

Anyway, now that I was all the way up at the top, I noticed I could make a loop hike by going down the other side of the mountain. I’m really glad I did too because on the way I ran into the really cool Armeno Gate. I had been considering going back down the mountain the way I came up, but if I had I would’ve missed this awesomeness.

As you can also tell, the views from up there were absolutely incredible! I could see the Euboean Gulf with Stouronisi Island on the left and the Aegean Sea on the other side of Euboea on the right. This “quick visit” actually turned out to be a really epic and unforgettable hike. Beautiful terrain, a rewarding peak, tremendous views, and ancient mysterious ruins, it doesn’t get much better than that.

The next town I decided to rest my head in is Karystos on the southern part of the island. Karystos is another quiet town with not a whole going on, but they do have a 14th century Venetian tower.

Karystos also has a castle, Castello Rosso, up on one of the peaks overlooking the town. Here’s some more confusing history that I didn’t know about. Castello Rosso was built in 1205 over some Byzantine ruins by the Lombards. Apparently the Lombards gained power over the area briefly after the Byzantine empire was divided up after the 4th crusade. I can’t keep track of all of these different empires. Anyway, a little over a century later, the Venetians took over.

Today, Castello Rosso is just a really ideal spot for some great views of Karystos. I also spotted the remains of a Roman aqueduct way down at the bottom.

There are ruins to explore on Euboea, but mainly I came here to hike. After exploring the castle I drove way down to the southern tip of the island to look for a ancient bridge. I never found the bridge, but I did find this beautiful little canyon near Epanochori to hike up with a waterfall and millions of wild orchids all over.

My last day I set off to do the main hike that brought me here to begin with, Dimosari Gorge, over on the other eastern side of the island. There were a lot of goat herds on this side.

The hike turned out to be pretty awesome. The clouds were threatening rain all day, but thankfully, I never got more than a couple of sprinkles.

Almost to my turn around point the trail came out into this amazing rocky cove with a bunch of little waterfalls. There was no one anywhere. Come to think of it, I didn’t even see any other cars when I was driving here or on the way back to Karystos. Occasionally, I could hear goats with their bells clanging in the distance and a shepherds call here and there, but that was it.

I set my turn around point as this church that was labeled on the map. I thought it was strange that there was a church this far out in the middle of the forest, and then I realized why. It’s apparently a ruined church, but I have no idea how old it is and there’s nothing identifying it as a church other than what’s written on the map, but whatever, time to start heading back.

Euboea was an interesting place to visit, and a welcome change of pace. All the amazing ancient cities I was visiting were starting to run together. I needed a small reset. Tomorrow, I’ll be on a VERY early morning ferry to cross the Euboean Gulf and dive back into some more ancient cities though. Stay tuned…