Evaluation: The beaches of Psilí Ammos and Agios Ioánnis are beautiful, but it is not so easy to walk to them. The purpose of this hike is to describe a pleasant route, at least for the way out. The way back is shorter, but it follows amongst others a fairly desolate valley below the new dam. Deserves **.
[The translation of this walk was made with some help of Google translate - so, do not mind the mistakes...]

Estimated time: You could make this rather short walk in a little less than two hours (AWT): it takes indeed an hour to reach the beach of Agios Ioánnis and the way back takes about 45 minutes – always in actual walking time. Half a day is enough, in theory, for this hike, but the beaches are beautiful and the tavern at Psilí Ammos is a lovely place to eat something...

Route description: (0u00) You walk along the edge of the water with its cafés, shops and restaurants, and you cross in this way the bed of the river next to the bridge - just before the (nowadays dilapidated ) restaurant Perseus. There is a road on the left hand to Chóra and a sign indicates the walk to Chóra - see the walk Livádi - Chóra - Livádi.

The sign that indicates the walk to Chóra.

However, you should continue along the water and you pass also the restaurant Stamátis.

(0h08) Some 50 meters further, you take a gravel road to the left (sign rooms Elefthería Potíri 300 m). This very wide road meanders towards the interior of the island and passes amongst other things beside the Villa Niki and after 4 minutes, next to the rooms of Elefthería Potíri. You already have a beautiful view on Chóra and the two chapels on the top of the hill.

Panoramic view on Chóra.

After 7-8 minutes, the gravel road, which is more narrow now,  becomes concrete and you cross a small valley, between hedges of reeds. Immediately after, there is a bifurcation where you go up to the left. You pass to the right of a large house with 4 blue sheds and the concrete becomes gravel.
You go down now and you pass deep underneath the chapels of Chóra; you go up again and you see in front of you a concrete bridge. You continue towards the bridge and once arrived at the right turn of the road, you take the path that leads to the bridge.

(0h26) Beyond the bridge, you follow the path with curbstones to the left, in the direction of a pigeon house (red mark). This trail is not on the Anávasi map. After a minute, you do NOT continue to the right of a wall, but you go further up the rocky slope (red mark). But a few minutes later, you find yourselves again on the right of the wall and shortly after, you keep to the left, while continuing between 2 walls (red mark). You climb on a rocky and uneven ground towards the cemetery – and always with a great view on the back side of Chóra.

A rather unusual view on Chóra...

You continue for a few minutes between the two walls, with on the left the large cemetery. So you get, after a little more than 8 minutes, to a gravel road - you do NOT take a left towards the cemetery, but you continue straight.

(0h34) Some 40 meters further, you pass a path on the right (towards the dam, following the hike to Psilí Ammos), but you proceed on the gravel road. A few minutes later there is another road on the right - it leads to the valley and ponds with frogs, see also the walk Livádi - Chóra - Psilí Ammos.
You continue straight on, but after the culminating point of the road you see a bifurcation: the left road continues to walk [1] to Kéndarchos, you go down to the right, towards the large concrete bridge. It spans a green valley with lots of oleanders and cactus - downstream, there are ponds with frogs, but now there is no water (8 October 2007).

(0h39) After the bridge begins a wide paved path with steps, between walls. You arrive near an angle of walls, built with large stones, and a little over a minute later, you first take a left and then a right (in each case, there is a red mark).

The beginning of the nice trail to Agios Ioánnis.

Far ahead of you, you already see the sea with the islet Vous. After 5 minutes, the flat trail veers to the right and you continue alongside a heavy metal water pipe and you are passing a farm yard with a lot of rubbish. A little further, you should pay attention: you arrive at a rocky spot between walls - here, you should take a LEFT, continuing between two walls in the direction of a low hill (orange and red mark), and NOT a right towards Vous.

(0h47) Shortly after, you keep to the right (2 marks), you continue to veer to the right and at the highest point, you can enjoy a beautiful view on Vous, on the dam, the bay of Livádi and (to the right) on Chóra.

Panoramic view on the storage lake.

Panoramic view on the bay of Agios Ioánnis.

Pay attention though: do not get tempted to go down straight to the bay! The narrow trail indeed turns immediately to the LEFT (orange mark) and continues thereafter between walls. It will now descend always in the same direction to finish near the left bend of the asphalt road.

(0h59) You follow the main road to the right for 5 minutes, then you see, in the light turn right, a footpath on your left that goes down between walls, straight to a few houses and the bay. Already after 3 minutes, you reach the first house, then you arrive in a small green valley. You follow the narrow path to the right of the river bed, until you get to the pebble beach. The best thing will be to continue for a few minutes to the right, where the beach gets sandy – at the level of the stairs painted in white, which leads to the chapel. (1h06)

The nice sandy beach of Agios Ioánnis with its clear water...

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. It is a pity that there is no tavern to have something to eat or to drink.

(1h06) 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.

The chapel of Agios Ioánnis.

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.

The bay of Psilí Ammos.

(1h15) 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.  

(1h25) In front of you there is the not very nice 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.

View on the dam, in the valley of Charaniá.

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.