Skala Eressos - GIC The Villa Collection

The volcanic part of western Lesvos contains some of the island's best beaches. Skala Eressos boasts one of Lesvos' finest, a 3-kilometre stretch of dark sand (some shingle), and a clean open sea.

Skala Eressos is small enough to keep its quaint village feeling but large enough to offer a good choice of restaurants, cafe-bars and shops. The 500-metre-long esplanade above the sea is a pedestrian zone, and here there a plenty of tavernas. It can be lively and quite fun in the evenings.

The beach is wide and very long, so there's always plenty of space, and it has sunbeds, umbrellas and pedaloes for hire.

Skala Eressos today has a relaxed bohemian atmosphere where artists and beach lovers enjoy a laid-back life enjoying long lazy lunches that the Greeks are famed for.

If you want to explore, then there is plenty of interest to be found in the rest of the west. Take a taxi to Eressos five minutes away, for an evening meal in an atmospheric village and a hire car will allow a visit to the Petrified Forest (one of only two in the world), the monasteries of Ipsilou and Perivolis, or the inland villages of Andissa and Vatoussa, where you can enjoy traditional ouzo-mezedhes under the shade of three enormous plane trees.