Things to do in Skopelos

Skopelos is the greenest of the Greek islands, and not by a small margin: pine forest covers most of it and runs right down to the waterline. That is the real reason to come. The other reason is a film, and this page is honest about both, because they pull a visit in different directions.

Skopelos Town, which is the best hour on the island. The main town is a tiered amphitheatre of houses around the harbour, stacked steeply with slate roofs and whitewashed walls, and an improbable number of churches: the usual figure quoted is around 120 in the town alone. Take that as the figure everybody quotes rather than a count anybody has published. Above the town is the ruined kastro, below it a working waterfront, and the lanes between are stepped and largely car-free. Walking up through them is the thing to do here if you only do one thing.

Glossa, the second town. At the northern end, higher and quieter, above the port of Loutraki. It is the counterweight to the harbour town: same island, much less traffic, and a different view of the same water.

Agios Ioannis sto Kastri, and the honest version. The chapel stands on top of a rock stack on the northeast coast, reached by a flight of steps cut into the rock. It was the wedding chapel in the Mamma Mia film and it is now the single most visited spot on Skopelos. Two things are worth saying plainly. The climb is a genuine staircase up a rock, not a stroll. And there is nothing at the top but a small chapel and a view, which is exactly enough if that is what you came for and a disappointment if you were expecting a set.

The film, in proportion. Skopelos was a serious destination before the film and remains one after it. Kastani beach also appears on screen. If the film is the whole reason for the trip, know that the pilgrimage is two stops and half a day; if it is not, know that the island’s actual character is the forest and the town rather than the rock. Skiathos is often sold as the Mamma Mia island and mostly was not: the main filming was here.

The forest, which is the thing nobody photographs. Pine covering most of an island and running down to the shoreline is genuinely unusual in Greece, and it changes everything downstream of it: the beaches are white pebble under dark green rather than sand under scrub, and the interior is shaded in a way Cycladic interiors never are. Walking or driving into the middle of it is worth an afternoon on its own terms.

What that forest means for your feet. Sand is scarce here and water shoes are common, which is a small thing that changes a beach day if nobody told you. The beaches page covers the coast properly.

Getting here, and why that shapes the trip. There is no airport. Ferries and hydrofoils run from Volos, Agios Konstantinos and Mantoudi on Evia, usually via Skiathos, which has the nearest airport and is twenty minutes away by fast boat. That routing is why so many people arrive here on a day trip from Skiathos and see only the rock, and it is the strongest argument for staying: four nights, because Skopelos is large enough and green enough to reward a real stay rather than a stop. Skiathos to Skopelos covers the crossing, our Skopelos guide has the island in full, and the group is the Sporades.