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This island is an ideal holiday destination and is in fact one of the most popular of the Greek islands with tourists, combining as it does mountains and the seaside.

It is rich in vegetation and has clean sandy beaches and bays, picturesque villages as well as exciting nightlife. All these things combined offer the visitor the best possible holiday.

There is a regular ferry boat service connecting it to the rest of Greece by way of Keramoti in the county of Kavala, which is just 3 nautical miles away.

With 98 km of coastal road around the island, wonderful scenery, sandy beaches, fishing villages and mountain settlements such as Panagia, are all waiting to be explored. Three centres, the capital Thassos town or Limenas as it is also known as Potos and Limenaria.

The east coast has the best scenery mountains. Meet sea here and some fine beaches. Chrissi Ammoudia (Golden Beach) is probably the best, although now a developing resort area. Paradise Beach, halfway down, is naturist. The small sandy inlet of Aliki has the remnants of a Doric temple on its headland and is popular with photographers and caique trippers alike, it is certainly pretty. But the best beaches are in the far south, which boasts a string of gloriously sandy bays. Here is the island's second town, Limenaria and the two smaller resort villages of Potos and Pefkari. The gentler western coast has olive trees, beaches of its own and a procession of fishing villages.

Inland, built high in the hills for protection against marauding pirates, there are some beautiful old villages to seek out. Traditional Thassian villages, rather like those in Pelion, have gray slate roofs, a cool central square, mountain springs and lush vegetation. The local taverns here serve simple, honest and fresh fare. Theologos is worth a visit (it was the old medieval capital) and from Potamia walkers will enjoy the path leading up to the summit of Mount Ipsarion, at 1200 m the highest point of the island. Being so close to the mainland, Thassos is popular with Greeks for their own summer holidays, and the small resort areas can be busy for a four-week period in July and August. But the island is large enough, and has so many miles of sandy beach, that it manages to absorb this influx with greater ease than many smaller islands.

Thassos is famous for its honey - beehives are much in evidence - and marble is still quarried today. It is an island of great natural beauty, a distinctively Greek atmosphere, and with much to offer away from the beach.