A Volos itinerary: three days, and tsipouro

Three days: one for the city and the tsipouradika, two for Pelion above it. Everything else is in the Volos guide.

Day 1: the tsipouradika, and how they work

A tsipouradiko serves tsipouro, the local spirit, and every order arrives with a plate of food you did not choose. Order a second round and a different plate comes. The plates escalate: small fish, octopus, vegetables, then something more substantial.

You do not order a meal here. You order drinks, repeatedly, and dinner happens to you.

There are dozens of these places along the waterfront and in the streets behind it, and it is the single best reason to stop in Volos. Go early rather than late, go hungry, and pace the rounds, because the escalation is real and the plates keep coming.

Spend the rest of the day on the waterfront and in the city, which is a working port and university town rather than a resort, with a good archaeological museum holding finds from the Neolithic settlements around the gulf.

Day 2: Pelion, the mountain villages

Behind the city, Mount Pelion rises steeply and the villages sit on the ridge in chestnut and beech woods, which is not what most people expect of Greece.

Makrinitsa is the famous one, hanging on the slope directly above Volos with a view down over the whole gulf, stone mansions with painted interiors and a square under enormous plane trees. Portaria beside it is the other main village and slightly less visited.

Drive up, walk the lanes, eat under the trees. The temperature drops noticeably as you climb, which in August is the entire point.

Milies and Vizitsa further along the ridge are the quieter pair, and Milies is the terminus of the old narrow-gauge railway that still runs up from the coast in season.

Day 3: the two coasts

Pelion is a peninsula with two very different coasts, and a day is enough to see why.

The western side faces the gulf: sheltered, calm, warm water and small resorts, easy swimming and short drives.

The eastern side faces the open Aegean: bigger, rougher, with steep descents through the woods to beaches like Mylopotamos and Damouchari that sit under cliffs. It is the more spectacular side and the more work.

Pick one for the day. Doing both means spending it on the road over the ridge.

How to adapt this

One night. The tsipouradika and Makrinitsa the next morning. That is the essential Volos and it is worth breaking a journey for.

As the ferry port. Volos is the mainland port for Skiathos and the Sporades, and a night here before or after the islands is far better than a rushed connection. Volos to Skiathos covers the crossing.

With a car. Necessary for Pelion. The villages are on a mountain ridge and the beaches are down steep roads on either side.

In autumn. Pelion is a chestnut and beech landscape, so it turns colour, which almost nowhere else in Greece does.

Where this leaves you

Three days from Volos: the tsipouradika on the first evening, the Pelion villages of Makrinitsa and Portaria on the second, and one of the two coasts on the third. Do not order a meal on the first night, take a car for the mountain, and give the city more than the hour most ferry passengers give it.

Quick answers

What is a tsipouradiko?

A place that serves tsipouro, the local spirit, where every order of drinks arrives with a plate of food you did not choose. Order another round and a different plate comes, and the plates escalate. You order drinks repeatedly and dinner happens to you.

How many days do you need in Volos?

Three: one for the city and the tsipouradika, one for the Pelion villages above it, and one for whichever of the peninsula’s two coasts you prefer. One night is enough if you are only passing through for a ferry.

What is Pelion like?

A mountain peninsula behind Volos, with villages in chestnut and beech woods along a high ridge and two very different coasts below: a sheltered western side on the gulf and a rougher eastern side facing the open Aegean. It is noticeably cooler than the coast.

Is Volos just a ferry port?

It is the mainland port for the Sporades, which is how most people meet it, but the tsipouradika alone justify a night and Pelion behind it justifies two more. Passing straight through is the common mistake.