Heading towards Kavála from Sithonía or Athos by public transport is surprisingly tricky, since buses from the two peninsulas run only to Thessaloníki. However, the gap between the Thessaloníki-Halkidhikí and Thessaloníki-Kavála services is only 17km wide at one point, with a couple of places you wouldn't mind getting stuck at along the way, so if you don't have your own transport but plenty of energy, you could always walk.

 

To begin, you should get off the Ouranoúpoli-Thessaloníki bus at the drab coastal village of STRATÓNI . The bay here is dominated by the local mine workings, and there is little incentive to stay, though there are several tavernas on the grey-black beach and even one basic hotel, the Angelika (tel 03760/22 075; ¬24-33). From Stratóni, the scenic road glides over the forested ridge north 17km to the beach resort of Olymbiádha, from where regular buses run to the Thessaloníki-Kavála highway - ending up, incidentally, in Thessaloníki at a special terminal at Irínis 17, behind Langadhás 16; they ply the route four times daily Monday to Friday, three times on Saturday and twice on Sunday all year round.

OLYMBIÁDHA (aka Olymbiás) itself is very low-key. In the late 1990s an Athens-based mining company, TVX, pushed to establish a highly polluting gold-processing plant here, and the locals were understandably up in arms at the prospect of losing their pristine environment; demonstrations and criminal prosecutions for sabotage of company equipment gave the village nationwide media attention, and all-round pressure forced TVX to abandon their scheme.

You can stay in rooms , a pair of shaded, streamside campsites - Olympias and Corali (tel 03760/51 304) - 1km north and 500km inland respectively, or a pair of co-managed hotels: the quieter Liotopi at the south edge of town, with breakfast served in a lush garden, and the central Germany with an atmospheric ground-floor taverna (both tel 03760/51 362, fax 51 255; ¬43-58 half-board). There are more tavernas on the southern bay, the cheapest and most characterful being the Kapetan Manolis/Platanos by the concrete jetty. All along this shore the local speciality is mussels ( mydhia ), farmed in floating nursery beds and typically served in a spicy cheese sauce, or sold raw for home use at roadside stalls.

The small town beaches are fine, but there are other ones - such as Próti Ammoudhiá, where the water can be murky - 2km back towards Stratóni, behind the promontory containing ancient Stageira , birthplace of Aristotle. This covers two hilltops joined by a saddle, and is under continuous summer excavation; it's completely fenced off, but when the gates are open you're free to have a wander around, though there's not much on view yet apart from the western wall and towers guarding the landward approach, a few paved streets and house foundations. It is, however, perhaps unique in ancient Greece for having been a city built of granite rather than marble or limestone.

STAVRÓS , 12km north of Olymbiádha - the interval dotted with semi-accessible coves - is a much bigger, busier place than Olymbiádha: a neon-lit, fun-faired vulgarity. It does, though, have a beautiful seafront of plane trees, and up to ten daily orange buses to Thessaloníki's Irínis 17 terminal. Among five modest hotels , the Athos (tel 03970/61 353; ¬24-33) is the best placed and represents best value; tavernas such as Iy Amalthia or Iy Platania , at the far south end of town, are the most authentic.

From here you're only 4km from the main E90 highway, where just east of the junction the first coastal place of any size - ASPROVÁLTA - will come as a jolt after the relative calm of Halkidhikí. Minimally attractive, it's essentially a summer suburb of Sérres or Thessaloníki, with a frequent bus service to and from the latter.

Fourteen kilometres east of Asproválta, the road to Kavála crosses the River Strymónas , recorded as one of the most polluted in Europe owing to dumping of toxic substances near its sources in Bulgaria. If you bear onto a minor road signposted for Nigríta, rather than continuing over the river bridge, after less than 1km you'll find on your left the colossal marble Lion of Amphipolis . This was reconstructed in 1937 from fragments found when excavating the nearby ancient city of Amphipolis, and is thought to date from the end of the fourth century BC. Ancient Amphipolis itself (Tues-Sun 9am-3pm), some 3km further on, beyond the old iron bridge across the Strymónas, figured largely in Thucydides' Peloponnesian Wars . It's worth the slight detour, preserving considerable chunks of fortification wall, foundations of a fifth-century BC river bridge and an early Christian basilica with mosaic floors.

Beyond the Strymónas, there's a choice of routes east: the shorter, but slower inland road via the villages at the base of Mount Pangéo, or the slightly longer but quicker coast highway, which is the one long-distance buses to Kavála tend to use. This is being upgraded to motorway status as part of the "Via Egnatia" project, though there's not a great deal along the way other than some vineyards, an occasional crumbled medieval watchtower and duney, white-sand beaches , the best in eastern Macedonia, scarcely developed and relatively free from river-borne pollution. The first place of any size, NÉA PÉRAMOS , 14km before Kavála and connected by regular buses, sports an unheralded castle at one corner of its sandy, sheltered bay. This isn't a bad place to spend a couple of hours, especially before taking one of the several daily ro-ro ferries (but only once a day off season) to Skála Prínou on the island of Thássos. Camping Anatoli (tel 05940/21 027; May-Sept) at the west end of things, with a saltwater swimming pool, can be recommended if you want to spend the night. The only other campsites between here and Kavála are the Estella , 5km east, or the pricier Batis , 10km along and already hedged by Kavála's sprawl.