Chora - Petoúsis - Livádi - Loústria - Karavostásis

Evaluation: This hike leads through the arid south-eastern part of Folégandros. The donkey trail between Chóra and Petoúsis, which is still described by Marc Dubin in his ‘Trekking in Greece’, has been replaced by a concrete and gravel road already many years ago. This means that only the part Petoúsis - Livádi is actually a pleasant trail. The beach of Livádi in the bay of Loústria is not unpleasant, but fairly exposed to the northerly wind. This hike gets an evaluation of *.

Estimated time: All together the hiking time is 1h50 (AWT): 70 minutes to Livádi, and then two times 20 minutes to the beach and from then to Karavostásis. Over there you have to take the bus back to Chóra.

Route description: You depart from the bus square at the southern side of Chóra, where you also find the beginning of the road to Ano Meriá. At the bar El Greco you follow the ring road to the east (and the petrol station) for a short while. Almost immediately though, you take a right on a concrete road (there is also a signpost Heliport); in earlier days this concrete road used to be a donkey trail between the walls. You can walk on briskly on this rather unpleasant road without taking a left nor a right. The concrete turns into a gravel road after some 7 minutes, immediately past the turn to the heliport. After about 11 minutes you get to a desolate hill ridge: from there on you can see the road going up and down far away in front of you, all the way to Petoúsis. You walk through this barren landscape for about half an hour until you arrive at a junction. You take a left, in the direction of the houses of Petoúsis. A little further on, just past an olive field on the left-hand side and about 200 metres before the first houses, there is a monopáti off the left in between the walls. You find this trail amidst a lot of grey rocks and a little further down there is also a red dot. 

After some 5 minutes the walls move away from each other and, as usual, it then gets more difficult to find the trail. You follow the left-hand wall (and the traces of donkey dung) and you curve to the left gradually, in the direction of the valley situated in between the Troulos-hill (313 m) and the Profítis Ilías (with a chapel, 281 m) – down in the valley you can already see the red-brownish trail. Some 10 minutes later you walk in between the two walls again for about 200 metres – this is clearly the right way. A little further down the red path is easy to follow between the green thorn-bushes. In this way you continue on this trail for about 10 minutes. You walk in a green valley and you are guided by large cairns and one single green dot. You thus get to the edge of the plateau: the island of Síkinos is clearly visible in front of you, with the island of Ios beyond. In front of these islands you can see the blue bay of Loústria and the little rocky island in this bay. 

You now descend straight towards a couple of houses deep beneath you; later on you curve to the right, in the direction of Livádi – the final stretch of this trail is very stony and it runs on the right-hand side of a wall.

You walk past the poor houses of Livádi and you go down on a concrete slope, until you arrive at the brown, earth road – which curves further to the left, towards the sea. You follow this road for about 20 minutes and you thus get to the fairly beautiful beach of the bay of Loústria, with sand and pebbles. The sea can be fairly rough, because the beach is exposed to the northerly wind. It is also here that you find the only camping of Folégandros.