Karystos

The dragon houses sit on the windswept ridge of Mount Ochi — megalithic slabs weighing several tonnes, fitted together without mortar, built by someone nobody can identify. Below, the harbour town of Karystos looks across to the mainland, and the hillsides above are scarred with abandoned Roman marble quarries where green-veined cipollino was cut for emperors.

The drakospita (dragon houses) are megalithic stone structures on the ridges of Mount Ochi, built from slabs weighing several tonnes. Their origin and purpose remain unexplained — archaeologists have variously attributed them to Carians, Macedonians, or unknown builders. The largest, on the summit of Mount Ochi at 1,398 metres, has a roof formed from single stone slabs. Karystos was the source of cipollino marble (columnar marble with distinctive green veining) used throughout the Roman Empire; abandoned quarries are visible in the hillsides above the town. Southern Evia is connected to the mainland by a road bridge at Chalkida, where the Euripus Strait reverses current direction approximately every six hours — a phenomenon studied since Aristotle. The Dimosari Gorge runs from the mountain to the coast near Karystos, offering a full-day hike through plane trees and waterfalls.