Halki (Chalki) Overview

Halki is the perfect place for a totally relaxing do-nothing holiday. Perfect for reading, sunbathing, swimming straight off the terraces of beautiful waterfront properties, eating, drinking, mingling with friends and re-charging your energy levels by entering into the unhurried way of life.

Your first impression of the island of Halki, as you arrive by boat, is established by one of the most spectacular views, with beautiful, neo-classical houses, crowned with red tiles and rising up like tiers in an amphitheatre around the harbour. Life on the island of Halki is simple and unhurried and you can spend endlessly happy hours here, just lazing around under the sun and swimming whenever you feel like it.

The island of Halki has had its name changed constantly over the years in an attempt to replicate the aspirated sound of its initial letter 'ch' as in the Scottish 'loch'. It was called Chalkia by the ancient Greeks. The name Halki most probably originated from the copper workshops there in ancient times. (Halkos being the Greek word for copper) or from the Phoenician word 'Harki', meaning 'shells', found in abundance along the shores of the island.

Although once the home of 5,000 residents, fewer than 200 people inhabit Halki today and roughly 25 to 30 men continue the tradition of fishing. Small wooden sail craft were once used here as fishing vessels but now new boats powered by engines, rather than the wind,have taken their place. The waters are relatively calm in this part of the Mediterranean and only in winter, when the occasional easterly or westerly winds pick up and storms blow, is the weather a threat. In the wintertime, boats are moved to moorings in the harbour and if the wind isn￿t blowing too badly, the men get out to fish.

Sponge diving off the island of Halki was the main source of income until the 1940's. Problems arising from high taxes and the alarming number of serious, often fatal, accidents resulting from the hazardous conditions for diving, meant loss of livelihood for many of the inhabitants. The subsequent decline in the industry caused many of the divers to emigrate to Florida, especially to Tarpon Springs, where sponge diving continued to flourish. However some of the new money found its way back to Halki and was invested in a new road, known as Tarpon Springs Boulevard, finally completed in 1995. Today the residents of Tarpon Springs Florida do not forget their roots and have financed the funding for the stone clock tower and a new road to the Monastery, far up in the mountains.

The island of Halki is situated about 35 nautical miles west of the island of Rhodes and is just 5 miles from the promontory of Monolithos on that island. Halki is one of the smallest of the Dodecanese group of islands but has a wonderful 34 km of coastline. The landscape is mountainous and the beaches are mostly small and rocky. Halki literally abounds in "monasteries",chapels and water-cisterns for the gathering of rain water - there is almost no natural water supply.