Our first few days in Skopelos were windy, cool with some rain. I thought it didn’t rain in Greece in the summer! A big storm rolled in on Saturday night while we were sleeping – the water poured in through our open windows and even through the closed ones, flooding the concrete floors.
Skopelos Town has retained its traditional feel. Most of the homes appear to be well maintained. There are not many cars in the village and the tourist stores do not overwhelm the village. So far, at the end of May, it is not yet crowded and some businesses don’t even open up until June 1st.
It was an easy walk most days from our villa to the port and town. There was a beach right in front of the house but it isn’t Skopelos’ best beach.
With our adventure loving group we took hike on our first day. Our supposed destination was Stafilos Beach from Walk #X in the Skopelos Walks book. We quickly got off track from that hike as we wandered through olive groves and back roads of the village. We started hiking up to a ridge that had spectacular views down to the town and the bay. Lea and I did pretty good considering we both have bum knees. We came back down along Monopati T1 which is a calidermi – these are the ancient stone roads that were the major transportation of the island in the days before cars and paved roads.
We stopped at the Metamorphosis of Sotiros, a monastery built in the 1600’s perched high above the mountain road. A lone grumpy monk ( Father Dionyssios) is the sole caretaker and was onsite to reluctantly let us look at his tiny church, only if we were properly covered and if we wiped our feet. The floor was a stone mosaic and the walls and ceilings were covered with frescoes painted in the 16th century. The little church was crammed full with chandeliers and icons.
The end of the hike brought us right down the path to our villa. Couldn’t have planned it better if we had known where we were going!
In the afternoon we all swam in the pool, rested and dressed to go out for dinner at Anna’s, a restaurant recommended by Nouna. We started out seated in the lovely garden/patio under vines and pomengrant trees but the rain forced us to move inside. We feasted on an amazing assortment of food – a “party in the mouth” meal.
