Hi,
We went to Skiathos in June, and this has taken a time to write up, hope you enjoy this post about our lovely holiday. We really enjoyed our holiday on the island. Its just off the main land of Greece in ;the Aegean Sea, its a beautiful island and part of the Northern Sporades group of Islands. These islands are famous for the film Mamma Mia that was filmed in these island. The second Mamma Mia film was not filmed there as the Freeks and the film company could not agree a price, although the chirch is the same in the both films the second film was filmed in Croatia.
We stayed at Achlades at the Hotel Esperades, which is right on the beach, we had a sea view room and this is a picture from our room.
The Water taxi (red boat) lands on the beach within a yard of the hotel. The cost of the water taxi to Skiathos was 3 euro each way. We went to Skiathos on the bus walked down the hill in the town to the harbour and got the water taxi back to the hotel. There is only one road on the island and 25 bus stops. The island is only occupied on the south sider as its too windy in the winter on the north side so they live on the south side of the island.
We did a 4 x 4 trip on the island it’s actually one of the best ways to see the Island, but it is off road in every sense of the word, once off the only real road of the island you are then on unofficial roads. To be honest we have farm tracks that are better than what they call roads, pot holes were like creators and ruts well they were like canyons. I kid you not even in these beautiful 4 x 4 cars the going was rough and he could only drive quite slow as you ventured around the north side of the island, to places the bus would not even go,
First we stopped at the castle unfortunately the walking was hard and the first part was uneven cobbles, then onto a rocky sandy path which I was unable to go any further, these are a few pictures of where we stopped for a while before walking back to the cars.
Next stop was the Evangelistria Monastery only two monks live in this beautiful monastery, the grounds were well kept and the flowering plants and fruit trees.
We did go inside the church picture on the left, but we were not allowed to take photos of the inside,
These are some photos of the monastery and the outside of the church. They had a photograph exhibition on, Alexander Lamont Henderson and hie 1904 Holiday snaps. We did not go into the exhibition as it was so hot we stayed in the shade of the gardens.
We then had lunch at Platanos which is a Panoramic View Restaurant, the views were fabulous, and these are some pictures that we took while having lunch. I had my favourite meal of Moussaka, and it was one of the best I have ever tasted.
This is us waiting for our meal, it was a very hot day as they were having a heatwave at the time we visited the island,
In the afternoon we drove on to two different beaches, there was very few people in these beaches as they are what can only be described as off the beaten track, the first one I can’t remember it’s name but the second one was Mandraki beach, we had a drink at the hut on the beach while some of the other went for a swim. It was a lovely day out and saw some of the island that we would not have seen.
Skiathos town has a busy port, part of the port is in the Mamma Mia film. There’s a fair bit of history to the island and of course during different periods of history it’s been invaded by the Romans, Venetian and Turkish, before the protocol of independence of Greece which was signed in London in 1830 which included Skiathos, Skopelos, Alonnisos and surrounding uninhabited islands making it part of Greece. During the Second World War Skiathos town was almost totally destroyed by German bombs during the Nazi occupation of Greece. During the difficult years the people of the islands risk their lives to help allied solders hide and then escape.
Today the town of Skiathos is the capital of Skiathos, the airport is beside the town, which has the shortest runway in Europe. We were lucky if the airplane has a full load they can’t refuel completely so they have to refuel on the way home, as our plane going home was not full they were able to take on enough fuel to fly all the way home. As planes land on the island you actually go very low over the sea, almost touching it before touching down.
We enjoyed our holiday and would recommend it to anyone, it’s a very green and beautiful island, and there are trips to the other islands to see the places in the Mamma Mia film, this visit we did not do these trips but perhaps next time we will, we do intend to go back one day.
Margaret
