Chalkida

Chalcis is named in the Iliad alongside its rival Eretria, and the Greek fleet bound for Troy was said to have gathered at Aulis, just across the strait. In the 8th and 7th centuries BC the city was one of the great colonisers of the Greek world: its settlers founded some thirty towns on the Chalcidice peninsula and cities in Italy and Sicily such as Cumae, Rhegion, Zancle and Naxos. Through these colonies the Chalcidian alphabet reached the Etruscans and, through them, the Romans. A war with Eretria over the Lelantine plain in the late 8th century BC made Chalcis the chief city of Euboea, but Athens broke its power late in the 6th century. Aristotle came here in 323 BC and died the following year at his mother's house.

The strait was first bridged in 411 BC. In Byzantine times the town was usually called Euripos, and Venice, which already had a trading station here, seized it in 1209 after the Fourth Crusade. To Westerners it became Negroponte, and it was shared between Venice and the Veronese barons who ruled the rest of the island. The Ottomans took it after a long siege in 1470 — the subject of Rossini's opera Maometto II — made it the seat of their Admiral of the Archipelago, and held it against Venice in 1688, having built Karababa Castle on the mainland shore four years earlier.

Chalkida joined the new Greek state after the War of Independence. A railway to Athens and Piraeus from 1904 boosted its trade, while the walls of the old Kastro were pulled down around the turn of the century. Turkish families lived in the old town until the late 19th century, and a Jewish community with roots claimed in antiquity until the Second World War; a memorial outside the Jewish cemetery recalls those lost in the Holocaust. A sliding bridge replaced the old swing bridge in 1962, and a cable-stayed bridge followed in the early 1990s.

Chalkida's identity is bound up with the Euripus. The strange behaviour of its current, reversing direction about four times a day, puzzled observers for centuries, and the water racing under the old bridge still draws onlookers. The city's layered past is visible in a small area, where a Dominican church begun about 1250, a 15th-century Ottoman mosque and a Jewish cemetery all survive. Saint Paraskevi, whose church is the city's best-known monument, is the patron saint of the island.

The city has given Greece a number of cultural figures. The writer Giannis Skarimpas lived and worked here and is buried at Karababa Castle; the composer Nikos Skalkottas, the singer Sotiria Bellou and the painter Dimitris Mytaras are among the people the city counts as its own. Sport is a local passion too, with a water polo club, NC Chalkida, and basketball and football teams that have known better and worse days.

Like the rest of Greece, Chalkida is Orthodox, and the church year — saints' days, name days and above all Easter — shapes the calendar. Visitors are welcome in churches if dressed modestly, and hospitality is taken seriously: food and drink offered at a table are best accepted.

About 64,500 people lived in the city at the 2021 census, and about 109,000 in the wider municipality, which since 2011 has also taken in the surrounding districts of Anthidona, Avlida, Lilantia and Nea Artaki. Chalkida is the capital and main port of the regional unit of Evia and the island's biggest city, and its everyday life revolves around its role as the island's administrative and commercial centre.

The city spreads across both shores of the strait. The island side holds the commercial centre, the old Kastro quarter and the long seafront; the mainland side spreads around the hill of Karababa Castle. Central Greece is more industrial than visitors tend to expect, and the factory belt around Oinofyta lies on the road to Athens, which is within reach by motorway and by the suburban railway.

Summer life moves to the water. Residents swim at the small beaches on the northern side of the city, and fish tavernas and cafés along the strait fill in the evenings. In August 2021 wildfires burnt much of northern Evia, a reminder of the risk that comes with each hot, dry summer.

Chalkida eats from the sea. The tavernas along the Euripus waterfront and in the suburb of Nea Artaki are known above all for fish and shellfish, usually served simply alongside a spread of meze, small dishes shared around the table and often accompanied by a spirit such as ouzo or tsipouro. Tsipouro is a strong, un-aged brandy distilled from grape pomace, the residue left after pressing.

Everyday food is the same as across Greece. Grill-houses serve souvlaki — small pieces of meat grilled on a skewer, eaten straight off the skewer or wrapped in pita with tomato, onion and sauce — and every table carries a horiatiki, the Greek salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, feta and olives dressed with oregano, lemon juice and olive oil. Retsina, wine flavoured with Aleppo pine resin, is a traditional accompaniment, and local wine is made nearby, including at a winery in Ritsonia-Avlida on the mainland side.

Produce from across the island reaches the city: Kymi, on Evia, is known for its dried figs.