Discover Thassos – The Emerald Island of The Aegean Sea

If I think of Greece, the first islands that come to my mind are Mykonos, Santorini, and Crete. However, those are only a few of more than 4,000 islands that belong to Greece.

A rather unknown and less touristy Greek island is Thassos also known as the Emerald Island of the Aegean Sea.

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You can say that I visited this island almost by accident. I hadn’t even heard about it before I decided to go there.

Actually, I found a cheap flight to Kavala, a city in mainland Greece. Besides Athens and Thessaloniki, I didn’t know any other major city in Greece either.

Spontaneous as I am (probably the first time I was haha) I booked the flight and didn’t even know what to do there. After doing some research, I found out that there’s a great ferry connection to the island of Thassos.

Now let’s see what particular places I visited during my stay and why this island is called The Emerald of the Aegean!

Due to my limited time, I didn’t have time to explore the entire island. Thus I decided to stick to the east part of the Island and went to all the places I found along the coast.

Limenas (Thassos)

Limenas (also called Thassos as the island itself) is the capital city of the island. From its harbor leave all the ferries connecting Thassos with the mainland.

The city itself is rather small so you can easily explore it by walking.

Old Harbor

What I recommend you do is to stroll along the seaside and head to the old little harbor. There you’ll find tons of small fishing boats, lovely taverns and nice beach bars to relax.

If you continue that way for a while, you’ll come to a beautiful, natural beach with golden sand and crystal-clear water. Even though I went there in March, the sea was already warm enough and I took a swim there!

A little bit further, at the end of the seaside walk, there’s an artificially made beach with white “sand grains”.

Thanks to the very Caribbean flair and a great restaurant with a stunning view of the sea, it became one of my favorite spots in Thassos. Although the beach wasn’t natural!

Right next to that beach is a small hill with a tiny church on it. The view from up there is truly breathtaking and thus I highly recommend you to go there.

In the photo above you can see what I meant when I said the restaurant has a stunning view. You’re basically sitting right at the edge of a rocky plateau.

Tours you might find interesting:

Archaeological Museum of Thassos

Like many other destinations in Greece, Thassos is full of historically interesting places. Probably the best opportunity to dive into that ancient history is by visiting the Archaeological Museum.

The exhibition there include many old and historical objects such as ceramics, sculptures, coins, and statues. It makes it very easy to imagine how people lived in this place centuries ago.

Ancient Agora

Located just outside the museum is the Ancient Agora. For all those who don’t know (I didn’t either): The Agora was a central spot in ancient Greek cities.

Right after you enter the Agora you’ll find ruins of a medieval tower that belonged to a fortress as well as remains of an ancient road that connected the Agora with the harbor.

If you continue wandering around, you can find numerous ruins of buildings such as shrines, sanctuaries, and temples.

Thanks to info signs at the entrance showing how the Agora (probably) looked like years ago, it’s easy to get an insight into the history of Ancient Greece.

Ancient Theater

Last but not least, the Ancient Theater is the last point on my list of historically important places in Limenas.

This theater is located on the same hill as the little church. Even though there were signs showing the way, it took me quite a while to find the right one!

TIP: If you climb the stairs (you’ll know which one I mean), keep parallel to an ancient wall to reach the theater.

I didn’t know that and went on another path for about 10 minutes after I realized it was the wrong one. 😀

The Ancient Theater faces the town of Limenas and thus offers a really lovely view of the harbor. Unfortunately, it was mostly a construction site as restorations were going on.

Nevertheless, it was really awesome being there and I really enjoyed the view.

Potamia & Skala Potamias

After I explored enough of the capital city, I decided to head south on the following day. My first stop was Potamia, a small village built at the foot of the island’s highest mountain Ipsarion.

It’s one of the best places to hike in Greece because you can see the entire island from its top.

The village itself wasn’t that spectacular except for the fact all houses looked exactly the same: White with grey-tiled roofs.

What I did like the most tho was the stunning view from up there. In the distance, you could see the dark blue sea with the golden beach of Skala Potamias.

I followed the road that led me directly to Skala Potamias. Even though it sounds almost the same as the mountain village, it’s a completely different place and has nothing to do with it.

On my way there I made a little stop because there was a great viewpoint of the village with the mountain in the background.

I found a lovely tavern right at the beach where I sat down and ate lunch.

Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my bikini with me that day (I know, silly me) so I skipped swimming and headed to my next destination on the south-east side of Thassos.

Alyki

A short 20-minute ride and I arrived in Alyki which is a beautiful peninsula leading into the sea. On each side of the peninsula, you can find wonderful beaches to relax.

Due to a massive fire in 2016, a big part of this side of the Island got destroyed as you can see in the picture below. Where once were lush greens as everywhere else, are now bald areas.

Alyki is way more than just beaches as it played an important role in the history of Thassos as well.

Archaeological Site

Almost in the middle of the peninsula are the ruins of two early-Christian basilicas. They’re a bit hidden but there’s a sign showing you the way to them.

Simply follow the path through an almost enchanting-looking garden and you’ll discover the ancient site.

Ancient Marble Quarry

A fact that I didn’t know before and I found out during my time on the island is that Thassos is famous for marble. Its pure and white color makes it valuable and it gets exported all over the world.

Alyki plays one of the most important roles in the history of marble production since it’s home to a big marble quarry. Thanks to its convenient location on the coast, it was the primary source of white marble in ancient times.

It’s possible to access the quarry from the beaches on either side of the cape. I took the path from the beach on the right side and on my way to the quarry I found a little shrine built in the rock.

After I spent enough time in Alyki, I continued my journey along the coast and reached my next destination within less than ten minutes.

Monastery of Archangel Michael

Situated right on the edge of steep rocks, the Monastery of Archangel Michael offers a panoramic view of the azure waters. It was built in honor of Archangel Michael who is the patron saint of Thassos and dates back to the 18th century.

When I entered the monastery, they gave me a scarf to cover my shoulders and a long skirt since I wore only shorts.

I visited the small chapel inside the inner courtyard and enjoyed the truly breathtaking view the place offered while sitting on a bench.

Potos

My last stop was Potos, a fishing village at the very south end of the island. Whilst it’s a very popular holiday destination in summer, it was almost completely empty when I was there in March.

Thus it wasn’t very lively and many shops were still closed. I simply walked through the village and made my way to the beach, passing a lovely church.

Well, that’s basically all that I did there.
Potos is super small and there’s not that much to do so I grabbed something to eat and made my way back to Limenas, where I stayed for the rest of my time.

Tours you might find interesting:

Honestly, although I had only four days on the island, I feel like I saw a lot of it! No wonder, Thassos is really not big at all and going from one end to the other – for example from Limenas to Potos – takes less than an hour.

I spent one day in Limenas, one day discovering the east side of Thassos and two days relaxing at the beach.

Oh btw, I almost forgot to tell you why it’s called the Emerald of the Aegean!
If you look at all the pictures above, I’m pretty sure you already know why tho.

Compared to the majority of Greek islands, Thassos is probably the greenest and most mountainous one. That’s exactly what makes it so unique and why I loved exploring this underrated gem of a Greek island!

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Camera Gear: I use a Nikon D5300 camera with an 18-105 mm and a 10-20 mm wide-angle lens to take my photos.