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Tourist information - Andhros
Andhros, the second largest and northernmost of the Cyclades, has a number of fine features to offer the visitor and is a great place for serious walkers. Thinly populated but prosperous, its fertile, well-watered valleys have attracted scores of Athenian holiday villas whose red-tiled roofs and white walls stand out among the greenery. Some of the more recent of these have robbed many of the villages of life and atmosphere, turning them into scattered settlements with no nucleus, and creating a weekender mentality manifest in noisy Friday and Sunday evening traffic jams at the ferry dock. The island doesn't cater to independent travellers, and it can be difficult to find a bed during high season, especially at weekends. On the positive side, the permanent population is distinctly hospitable; traditionally working on ships, they are only too happy to try out their English on you. Together with some of the more idiosyncratic reminders of the Venetian period, such as the peristereónes (pigeon towers) and the frakhtes (dry-stone walls, here raised to the status of an art form), it is this friendliness that lends Andhros its charm.
Ferries connect the island with RafÃna on the mainland, only an hour from Athens on the bus, and you can loop back onto the central Cycladic routes via Mykonos, Tinos or Syros. A bus usually meets arriving ferries and runs to Batsi and on to Hóra at least six times a day in the high season.
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