Chóra -Stavrós - Kéndarchos (Kallítsos) - Agios Ioánnis - Psilí Ammos - Livádi

Evaluation: This hike, through the interior of Sérifos, used to be a magnificent trip all the way, until the year 2003. The first half of the hike follows the same route as the hike via Kéndarchos to Galíni and Panagiá, but this trail is so beautiful that it is really worthwhile to make the hike twice. The second half brings you to the pleasant beach of Agios Ioánnis: it still offers some nice panoramic views on the southern coast of the island, but as a result of the construction of a new road between Livádi and Kéndarchos the situation has changed drastically.
Already in the year 2004 Eddie McLaney and his wife sent me some very kind and extensive emails in this regard, and as a result I have made the hike again in October 2008.
If you are prepared to follow the asphalt road for about 1.2 km, the rest of the hike is still worthwhile – the hike used to get an evaluation of ***, and today we would still give it **.

Estimated time: You can again catch the bus to Chóra (f.i. around 10am), and then you can cover the first half to Kéndarchos in about one hour and a half; you can have a picnic over there and then it will take another hour to Agios Ioánnis (still actual walking time): 15 minutes of gravel road, 15 minutes on an asphalt road and then a little over 25 minutes to reach the beach. You can leisurely stay on the beaches of Agios Ioánnis and Psilí Ammos: to get to the second beach you should count on a walk of 10 minutes and hiking back to Livádi will take 45 minutes. All together the total actual walking time takes 3h25.

Route description: By supposing that you will leave from Chóra, we start this hike on the bus square.

[If you do prefer to go on foot from Livádi to Chóra, we refer to the route description of the hike Livádi-Chóra.]

In between the shop of Michail Bofilios and the kafenion I Mili (The Mills) there is a flight of steps going down steeply. These steps bend to the left immediately and after 10 meters you go further down on a concrete path off the right. This path descends steeply again to the left after some 20 meters (at the house with number 484) and then finally turns into a paved street. A little further you will see a small red-and-white sign with the number 1 on a telephone pole – you will see this indication a couple of more times on this hike.

Some 5 minutes later you will leave the last houses behind you; the trail is now again covered with concrete. Another 20 meters further you DO NOT bend to the right - on a road leading to a cemetery and eventually back to Livádi…. Instead you take the rocky monopáti going straight, in the direction of a high aerial. When looking in the distance you will be able to discern the trail going over the next slope and going up to a chapel with a white arch – you will reach that spot later on!

A little further the trail gets vaguer and it splits up. You continue on the left, alongside a kind of wall. The trail gets clearer again and it descends to a stone bridge, painted in white (after another 5 minutes). To the left of this bridge there is a well-maintained watering place with a tap – on the balustrade of the bridge you will again see a sign with the number 1.

The trail goes up again now, sometimes it even turns into a nice flight of stone steps, a kalderími. Almost on top, at the foundations of a stone building, there is a path to the right (to Livádi or Psilí Ammos, see the hike Chóra - Psilí Ammos). Our trail, however, goes straight (there is also another sign with the number 1), in the direction of a chapel with a small arch. The views on Chóra behind you and on the bay of Livádi get the more and more beautiful – and in the valley on the right you see a large stone bridge, which you would have crossed had you taken a right just a moment ago. Ten minutes after the watering place you get to the top at the chapel. Now, the trail descends straight to a second valley with a bridge with an ugly metal balustrade. You reach this bridge after another 5 minutes and the valley is fairly green, even in Summer. This is the valley which is crossed by the large bridge we saw a on the right some time ago. In this valley there are some puddles with frogs, which you can reach on the hike to Psilí Ammos.

Your next objective now is the chapel with the blue arch and the house above it, which you see halfway to the top of the big hill on front of you, a hill with lots of aerials on top. The trail clearly continues in between walls, but after some minutes we get to a rocky open field. At this place you have to pay attention and you have to go up on the left in the direction of two stone walls (you will also see red dots and a sign with the number 1). These two walls go towards each other in a funnel-shape – still in the direction of those aerials.

Now, you walk between stone walls at first and later on between some metal interweaving + a wall, sometimes crossing open spaces, but always going straight and upwards towards the chapel with the blue arch. 

You reach this chapel after a climb of some 20 minutes of easy hiking.  On the summit you have a wonderful view on Chóra, Livádi, the beach of Agios Ioánnis and the island of Sífnos. Therefore, this is the ideal spot to take a break; the chapel is closed, but the steps in the shade are very inviting to sit for a while and to drink something – hopefully you have the indispensable thermos flask taken with you! You have now left the junction to Psilí Ammos 30 minutes behind you, some 50 minutes after your departure from Chóra.

At this chapel a beautiful kalderími starts off and you will follow this one until Kéndarchos. You go up gradually, in a rocky and very impressive landscape with great views on Agios Ioánnis, Psilí Ammos, Livádi, the little island of Vous, Sífnos and Chóra behind us.

You might even wonder who has ever put all this work into this wonderful trail. After a climb of about 25 minutes you reach a pass on a protruding cape; you can now see Kéndarchos already before you.  

You descend to Kéndarchos for about 20 minutes and in the end the long, beautiful kalderími reaches the asphalt road that was constructed in 2003. Some 100 metres in front of you, you can notice the first houses and there is also a large, red dot. You follow the road for a short while and when you get to the sign Kéndarchos you go down the brick staircase on the right (note the large red dot) – this staircase gets to the old trajectory of hike no. [1]. You enter the village by taking a left and you continue going down the staircase towards the ‘centre’; you pass some 2-3 streets off the right and by going straight you will finally get to a kind of square. Over there you will find a tap where you can freshen up and a wall where you can eat your sandwiches in the shadow – unfortunately there is no tavern or café. But still, this is a lovely spot, underneath a palm tree and a pine, isolated and peaceful.

From the little square of Kéndarchos you walk back for a short while, towards the west side of the village: you take the first street on the left and you follow a staircase going down. At the final houses the staircase used to become a narrow trail, but now you will be unpleasantly surprised: the staircase is broken off abruptly and you arrive at a gravel road running to a dead end. This road has completely destroyed the ancient trail – in fact, the asphalt road above you was useless already, so it is really incomprehensible why also this gravel road was ‘necessary’. The road gradually curves to the left and it descends; after a couple of minutes you DO NOT take the staircase off the left, nor do you follow the trail going up on the right a few minutes further down. In this way you describe a semicircle: Kéndarchos is now located on your left-hand side and you walk straight towards the sea.

Some 12 minutes later you can see the meagre remains of the ancient trail, down on your left. The overgrown trail going down on the left a little later on is the path leading to the beach of Kéndarchos. You curve to the right and after 15 minutes all together you arrive at the new asphalt road. This road connects Livádi with Kéndarchos (Kallítsos) and it has completely destroyed the old trail over a length of 1.2 km. The only option is to continue on this monotonous asphalt road for 1.2 km: you curve to the right and thereafter you describe a large curve to the left in the large, amphitheatre-shaped valley which you can see in front of you.

After 15 minutes and immediately past a curve to the right you notice a sloppy farm, with a beautiful panoramic view on the village of Chóra beyond. You pass a commemorative plaque for the construction of this new road (!) with the inscription “This work came about in the year 2003, under mayor Angeliki Synodino". 
Past the last little building you go to the left, through a low and barred gate that is unlocked. You descend over some terraces, on the right of a wall, in the direction of the already visible bay of Agios Ioánnis.

You then reach a mass of boulders and a wall: beyond the wall you see the beginning of a fairly nice trail between walls (there is also a big red dot). You clamber over this wall and you get to an obvious path running on the left of a wall. After two minutes you go through a breach in the wall (notice the red dot) with in front of you a beautiful view on the two bays and the small island of Vous. You go through another wall, you walk on a very narrow “terrace” between walls for a short while and then you descend on the right-hand side of some houses. You now walk on the left of an alóni (a threshing floor), on the right of the right-hand house and then over two small fields. You thus reach a nice trail between walls. The trail slightly curves to the right and finally it ends up in the bed of the valley running to Agios Ioánnis.

In this valley you find a narrow but obvious trail going to the left. The fifteen-minutes trip through the valley is still quite difficult, with a lot of clambering over large boulders – but apparently this is still the regular trail after all. This is clear from the donkey manure, a house along this ‘trail’ and the fact that the final 200 metres are made out of concrete. This path brings you right onto the beach, a truly beautiful beach with pebbles and sand. It is a pity that there is no tavern to have something to eat or to drink.
You can have a great swim at this beach – it can be really crowded in summer, but in spring and autumn it is usually deserted. This beach is also a safe anchorage place for sailing boats.  

To continue you can take the goat path at the far end of the beach, until you get to the asphalt road. Alternatively, you can also take the white staircase, on the left of the small concrete road. This staircase first leads to the chapel and then it goes up on the right to the asphalt road. You follow this road to the left and already after three minutes the bay of Psilí Ammos appears in front of you. An earth trail on the left descends to this bay. You arrive at a small concrete road, but a small path first goes down to a beautiful tavern and then continues to the very pleasant and sandy beach, which is shaded by tamarisks.

For the return road to Livádi you can choose again: you either go up to the asphalt road via the white staircase and you then follow the road to the left for about one kilometre, or you walk to the far end of the beach and then climb up by following some vague goat paths. We opted for the second alternative and we easily climbed up the slope amongst the low bushes, more or less in the direction of the highest electricity pole. In this way you reach a gravel road after some five minutes. This road runs to Agios Sóstis on the left – but obviously you have to take a RIGHT. In front of you, beyond the curve in the asphalt road, you notice the modest dam and all of a sudden also the village of Chóra appears again. The gravel road curves to the left and then gets to the asphalt road.  

In front of you there is the not very beautiful valley of Charaniá, running to the bay of Livádi. In order to avoid even more asphalt you do descend into this valley, by going down the trail straight across. This trail goes to the left for a short while, then it curves to the right alongside a wall, midst debris, but finally it moves away from the wall towards the left. In this way the clear trail made of loose stones crosses the slope towards the left. After a steep descent of a little over four minutes you already reach the gravel road in the valley. Because of the construction of the dam this valley was a large construction site until a few years ago – it is now a desolate gravel plain with the large dam on the right. The valley used to be full of reed, but at this stage, nature still needs some time to recover.

After some time the gravel plain narrows into a regular gravel road and about 8-9 minutes later this gravel road gets to the main road – strangely enough, the asphalt becomes gravel again over here. You follow the road to the right for seven more minutes – further down this road still runs through reed. You thus arrive at the water side where you follow the beach and the gravel road to the right. After another six minutes you reach the restaurant of Stamátis. You continue along the beach and the quay – or you can also have a drink in one of the bars or cafés.