Sunday 10th September 2017

We decided to go out for breakfast this morning and we sat on the harbour enjoying the lovely view. I watched various sea vessels bobbing on the waves; my eyes were also continually drawn to the cliff with its interesting rock strata and the beautiful green pines dotted on it. The place was excellent for watching the world go by.  We spotted Jo striding passed, obviously on a mission. ‘Καλημέρα’ we called three times before she stopped mid step, she was going to purchase a gift for her husband before she went with Kit to Κοκκινόκαστρο beach.  Seven or eight minutes later Kit passed by at a much slower pace.  There were only four people at the bus stop waiting for the private bus so the company ordered a taxi for them and the ladies went off in style waving to us from a large Mercedes Benz.

We returned to our room to pack, this room has been perfect and it ticked all the boxes – lovely view, very clean, hot water, fridge, kettle, it had so much more than we expected – tea and coffee, toiletries  and hairdryer.  Just in case you are wondering, the shower hose bracket didn’t work!  It was the wrong size for the shower head!

A couple of hours later with an hour to spare before the ferry, we sat and had a beer while admiring the view for the final time.

As we walked to the ferry we saw the proprietor from Elli Rooms with a couple following him pulling their luggage.  He had been lucky again and found someone to fill his vacant room.  He is proactive and we guess that he must greet all the ferries whenever he has a room available.

We boarded the Hellenic Seaways – EXPRESS SKIATHOS – ΕΞΠΡΕΣ ΣΚΙΑΘΟΣ and sat on the deck. The small ferry travels between the Sporades Islands.

It was a beautiful 40 minute journey.  The boat sailed between two pretty islands shortly before the island of Skopelos came into view.

 

As we approached the harbour we noticed

three white churches perched one above the other on the side of the cliff.

Skopelos Town is the main town on this island which has a population of less than 5000, obviously this rises considerably during the summer months.

After reading our guidebook again this morning and doing a little additional research on the internet, we have decided to find a place to stay on the beach.

Milia on the west coast has been voted the best beach on the island.  Panorma too, has excellent reviews and is also situated on the west coast.  We prefer to stay on the west coast to get sunset views so we will see what we can find. There were no buses for almost two hours. So we had a coffee and then went and enquired about the ferries to Skiathos which we will need in a few days time.

The bus journey was pretty and meandered slowly through villages.  We climbed steadily upwards. We caught glimpses through the gaps in the pine trees which revealed turquoise bays below, a few minutes later we were down at sea level again.

The bus dropped us off at the MILIA road sign; we walked for about ten minutes quite steeply downhill.  The road went through the pine forest, it was very pretty and we spotted numerous clumps of tiny wild cyclamen growing.

We passed one apartment complex and then we arrived at the beach which had a kantina.  There were no hotels, rooms or guesthouses and only one taverna. Fortunately we saw a taxi turning into the lone taverna; we rushed and managed to stop him.  We had quickly decided that Milia was not right for us.  We preferred more choice than just one taverna and we hoped for a place where we could perhaps hire an ATV.

We chatted to the driver Zacharios and mentioned how pretty Skopelos appeared to be.  He told us that it was the greenest island in Greece and that 65% of the land mass was covered in trees. We commented on how we had noticed quite a few of the pine trees broken on the walk down to Milia.  He said that the damaged branches were due to heavy snow. Skopelos had suffered its worst winter in 50 years; a metre of snow had covered the whole island.  We told the driver that we too had snow in Crete the previous winter, which is quite usual on the mountains but it snowed at sea level too.

He dropped us off at a hotel in Panormos but as it was more expensive than we wished to pay and a little walk to the beach we decided to leave it and have a look around.  I really fancied somewhere directly on the beach.

A short while later we were in the ‘Pelagos Apartments’, we had a lovely ground floor apartment with a small patio furnished with a bamboo sofa and coffee table. The patio was at the edge of a long garden. A footpath led through the garden directly onto the beach. Yes! Perfect!

Just across the road we found the small resort’s only supermarket and paid extortionate prices for a few necessities (but one cannot have everything).

With a glass of wine we sat on one of the double swings in the garden and read for a while. Later, we walked the few paces onto the beach and watched the sun slowly set. It was stunning! How lucky we are!

We ate dinner a few steps further along the beach; Dave ordered the fresh mackerel which he said was delicious.

When we returned to our apartment, we sat on our little patio and started to watch the film ‘Mama Mia’. It seemed rather appropriate as Skiathos is the island where it was filmed.  We were streaming the film and the picture was excellent until around 75% way through when it just went off, perhaps a few more users had logged on…

 

Previous                   Next