Therma, where the mountain meets the sea

Therma takes its name from the warm springs that rise here, close to the sea, rich in sulphur and other minerals. People have bathed in them since at least Byzantine times, and they still do: there is a municipal hydrotherapy building for proper baths, and simpler open-air pools where the warm water collects under the trees and anyone can sit in it, best of all late in the evening when the air is cool.

The village is not a village in the usual sense. There is no square and no old centre, just rooms, pensions, tavernas and gardens spread along the road and the streams under huge old plane trees. Water is everywhere: in channels by the road, in fountains, in the stream that runs past the taverna tables. On a hot August day it is several degrees cooler than the port.

Above Therma the forest closes in. A short path leads to Gria Vathra, a chain of waterfalls and green pools in the rock, and the river beyond comes down from the high slopes of Saos. A few kilometres east along the coast, the Fonias river falls through its gorge into the island's most famous pools. The marked trail to Fengari, the summit, starts on the edge of the village and climbs through oak and plane forest above the tree line to the bare rock at the top.

For decades Therma was also the heart of the island's free-camping summer. Tents spread under the plane trees east of the village, and young people from all over Greece and Europe came for weeks of rivers, music and bare feet. Free camping has been banned since 2025, and the campers now stay at the municipal site at Varades, but the easy-going spirit has stayed: yoga mats on the balconies, guitars at the beach bar, and nobody in a hurry.

Down by the sea there is a little harbour with fishing boats and a few yachts, a pebble beach with umbrellas and beach bars, and fish tavernas along the road. In the evening everyone drifts back up under the trees to eat, and the sound of the water follows you all night.