A brief visit to the Greek Sporades

Despite all the summer airport chaos, we arrived into Skiathos airport right on time on an early Sunday evening in late July. Clearing security and receiving our cases quickly from its small but efficient airport, we were met outside by someone from the guesthouse we were staying in – many of the small family-run guesthouses in Skiathos town offer free transfers the short distance from the airport to their properties.

After settling onto our modest but adequate room, we took a stroll downhill through the narrow back roads winding down to the main hub of Skiathos town. The sun was already going down and the seafront and harbour looked pretty in the red glow of dusk.

Our first priority was to find the old marina where the boat trip we had booked for the following morning would depart from. Easily locating that, next on our list was food. Although we’d eaten an all day breakfast at the airport before departing the UK that afternoon, that was now 6 hours ago and we needed some kind of snack to keep us going until morning.

We eventually settled on a seemingly popular Greek fast food-type place where we ordered chicken souvlaki – chunks of grilled chicken and salad along with a few chips in a pitta – opting to have the tzatziki sauce on the side in case we didn’t like it. It was dark by now and after a quick wander around some of the souvenir stores, we decided to call it a night and find our way back to our accommodation.

We were up early the next morning so we could wander into town to grab some breakfast before our cruise departed. We were again spoilt for choice with all the local bakeries and cafes on offer but sticking with the theme of the day (we’d booked a ‘Mamma Mia’ cruise) we chose to visit the reasonably priced Mamma Mia bakery.

While the tour had been marketed as a Mamma Mia tour, it actually had very little to do with the film other than a final stop at the church on a hill featured in the hit musical. From reviews we’d read online, we’d at least expected some Abba music to be piped into the boat – something that was obviously expected by other passengers too as one later asked a member of staff about this and offered to hook up his own iphone to the sound system. This lead to a full on party complete with drunken dancing from a group of fun-loving Italians on board once the cheesy pop classics started blaring out after our lunch stop.

Heading down to the old marina, we managed to locate the tour company we’d booked with from the many others all offering the same selection of island tours and Mamma Mia themed excursions and boarded our boat finding seats in the shade on the top deck.

Departing Skiathos old marina, the boat took us around the east coast of the island and up to Lalaria Beach on the north coast. Here, the boat docked at this well-known and extremely popular bay for about an hour. The beach had been separated in two overnight by a landslide and with the tide being in, this forced us to scramble over the fallen rocks to reach the far end of the beach and its pretty arched rock formation.

After a bit of sunbathing and paddling in the turquoise blue sea, it was back on board the boat where we found we were all stopped from sitting on the top deck – something which wouldn’t have been a problem except for the crew smoking indoors downstairs. Finding a seat by the window, we soon found out that the upstairs was out of bounds for safety reasons and due to rough, high seas the day’s itinerary would have to be changed.

While we would still be heading to the island of Skopelos, we would no longer be able to stop at Skopelos town and would instead be heading to a small bay on the island.

As Skopelos town was to be our lunch stop, we were reassured that there were cafes and restaurants where we were going.

Arriving at Panormos Beach, we found that it was pretty enough but there wasn’t a great deal to do. Avoiding being herded into the first restaurant we came to with the rest of the group, we walked the length of the bay eventually sitting at the furthest restaurant along and ordering some reasonably priced toasted sandwiches before returning to the boat via a small convenience store to grab ice poles to cool us down.

After our makeshift lunch stop, we passed the cave of Skiathos before docking at a port on the west of Skopelos Island. From here, we left the boat and boarded coaches which took us across the island to the stop we had all been waiting for – the church of Agios Ioannis Kastri, or the ‘Mamma Mia church’. Made famous in the Meryl Streep musical, the church sits on the top of a large rock, only accessible by walking up 110 steps. It was a pretty climb and the views gave us plenty of excuses to stop on the way up.

This was the last stop of the day so from here, it was back onto the coaches which returned us to the boat ready to sail back to Skiathos. Arriving late afternoon, we had a bit of time to explore the town some more before grabbing dinner and heading back to our guesthouse.

We had to be up at 4am the next morning to make a 7am flight to Athens so our time on Skiathos had come to an end. I’d liked what I’d seen of it and wished we had a bit more time to see more of the island.