Skiathos, August '08 - her version

The Sporades islands group lies off the eastern shore of mainland Greece and consists of 11 islands of which only 4 are inhabited: Skiathos, Skopelos, Alonnisos and Skyros. We decided to visit Skiathos, as we were trying to avoid the busy beaches of Crete and Rhodes, and find our own, secluded places to relax in.

What we did:

Upon our arrival, we could see even from the airplane window the crystal clear blue water and all the small islands surrounding Skiathos. We stood at Aria Hotel (bus stop no 4, very well located at a 15 minutes’ walk from the city-center), a nice place, not too fancy but with all the necessary amenities; the pool area was extremely beautiful, overlooking the sea.

There is only one bus-line in Skiathos, with 26 bus-stops, running from the airport to Koukounaries beach. We spent our first day at Koukounaries - the most famous beach of Skiathos, therefore the most crowded. It is well-known for its extremely fine white sand and its fragrant pine trees forest. Apparently a British journalist ranked it among the first 5 best beaches of the world. It didn’t impress me that much though; it was too touristy, and the bus drive to/from it was awful as everybody wanted to go there (I wonder why ?!) and the bus was very crowded.

The second day we went to Troulos Bay (got its name due to the opposite little island (the Troulonissia) which looks like a dome (= troulos).) It was much smaller, more quiet and relaxing. But still, not the secluded place we were looking for. So we decided to go on a cruise boat trip the next day, to find out what the best places to go would be.

“Lazy day on the boat” – that was the name of the cruise; we took the boat from Troulos Bay (almost didn’t catch it because of a 30 min delay of the bus – always happens!). The price was 10 euro’s, they took us to the inhabited island of Tsougria and to Mandraki beach; we were supposed to have lunch here, but since the local tavern was out of food, we moved to the next beach, Agia Eleni. My dream was to visit Lalaria Beach – up in the north of the island, but the “captain” said we couldn’t go to the north because of the wind and big waves. Some friends, who took another cruise boat trip, went over there and confirmed the waves were pretty scary (4 meters high!), and their captain didn’t stop at Lalaria either. Over all, the cruise was pleasant, but there was no way of getting any privacy when you’re sharing the same boat/beach with another 50 tourists!

That’s why on the 4^th day we rented a car, a jeep (Suzuki Samurai – 55 euro’s/day + gas). That’s when the beautiful part of our holiday begun J First stop was at Moni Evangelistrias (an 18th century monastery, 450m above sea level, surrounded by pine and cypress trees). I liked that it was so quiet, the monks there had some cages with parrots, canaries and other birds, but I must admit I didn’t come to this island to visit religious sites, so we left in about 30 minutes.

Next stop: Nikotsara beach: the first breathtaking place I saw on the island. The road to Nikotsara was only accessible by jeep (thank God for our old little Samurai!), not paved and quite steep. From the top of one mountain we could see the beach: a small, maybe 20-30 meters stripe of sand, sheltered between two huge white rocky walls. The water was bright blue, just begging for a good swim. We couldn’t swim after all, because of the very powerful currents and waves. The water got deep after 3-4 steps, and the waves could easily smash you into the rocks. But the view was magnificent!

With no time to waste (the list of places to see was looong, and we only had the car for one day), we moved on to Kastro. That’s an old fortress, apparently the place where the locals went when there were pirate-attacks. The road was kind of difficult….more off-road and “jeep-safari”. Me and the girls were a little behind taking photos of the beautiful scenery while Puf was 10 steps ahead and said” You’d better stop taking photos there and come see the view over here!”. It was GORGEOS!! Kastro was a place that gave me the goose-bumps all over my skin. After each corner, I had the impression it got more and more beautiful. Definitely worth visiting!!! One could easily spend 2-3 hours there, just gazing at the incredible color of the sea.

And off we were to the next beach: Agia Eleni. We had already decided we would rent the jeep for an extra day, as we were a little bit behind schedule and didn’t want to miss the other places on our “visiting – list”. Agia Eleni was the best beach to see the sunset from, although the sun didn’t set into the sea, but behind a mountain from a small nearby beach. There was a tavern and a “pub” on this beach – the most “posh” place on all the beaches (but not posh at all actually). We had Bacardi Breezers and watched the sunset listening to great music played by the bar’s DJ, while some girls were doing gymnastic tricks on the beach and everybody clapped their hands. That was a great way to end the day, I had the feeling my eyes captured so many beautiful views!

The next day we hopped on into the car and went to Kechria Beach – the most difficult road of all; at one point me and the girls got scared and got out of the car, letting Puf to do his driving, as he insisted it was safe. It was as safe as a 45 degrees slope of dirt road can be, with an abyss on the left side and a wall of rocks on the right side. Eventually we got safe to the beach, a nice place, only 4 other people on the beach + a cute little dog. We spent a few hours there, and swam off the stress of the difficult road J

Afterwords we went for a dring in a restaurant called Panorama...and indeed there was a great panoramic view !

n the evening we moved to the Hidden Beach (not that hidden, if you ask me, as there were some signs pointing to it). Swam, sun-bathed and cuddled another little dog. The Hidden Beach (Kryfi Ammoudia) was right next to Agia Eleni, but the sunset was not as spectacular as it was on the first one.

On Friday we went to Vassilias beach; I was looking for Stefanos Sky School (had tracked him on the internet before leaving and wanted to rent a motor-boat from him). Stefanos was a great guy, I liked him a lot: always had some funny things to say, and he earned some points with me for talking very highly about marriage J - of course he only meant 10% of what he said (but tell me a good lie at any time and I will enjoy itJ)! Puf took his first water-skiing lesson (25 euro), and according to Stefanos he was a champion! The “CrazyShark” (10 euro/person) was the next thing we rode on: like a rubber-couch for 4 persons being dragged on the water by a motor boat – extremely funny, and Stefanos made sure we hit every wave on our way! We laughed so hard! Since it was the “water-sports-day”, we also decided to do some parasailing (60 euro/2 persons). The parachute is lifted 60-80 meters above the sea, and the feeling is great: you are so free, it’s so quiet up there, nothing but the wind blowing and the eye-feasting! It was so good that I had the impression it was over in a matter of seconds.

Saturday we rented the boat from Stefanos. My wish was to finally be able to go to Lalaria beach in the north, but apparently it was completely forbidden because of waves up to 10 meters high! I had to take my mind of Lalaria, although I bragged to everybody that that’s where I’m going to go! With Lalaria out of the reach, we were stuck between Tsougria Island and Koukounaries beach (that was the perimeter were Stefanos told us it would be safe to go, basically only the south side of the island). So we found ourselves not really knowing where to go, and decided to just drive until we saw a nice deserted beach to anchor to. As we headed up west, the wind got more and more powerful and the waves bigger and bigger, splashing us from head to toe, to the point where we couldn’t even take photos. We stopped in a small bay, only one other boat was there, but the people on it didn’t get off to the beach. So there was just the four of us on a 20 meters stripe of sand, bathing in the calm waters and laying our clothes on the rocks to get them dry. By the time we anchored to this bay we were already freezing because of the strong wind against our wet skin and soaked clothes. We enjoyed this beach for about one hour and then moved on to the next one: another deserted stripe of sand, a little bit more to the west; by now, the wind was so strong that after 10 minutes on the beach we were covered in sand and had to take off to a more quiet place; we tried to anchor near a doc on another beach, but couldn’t so we finally got off at Kanapista beach, where we took some well-deserved lunch. Kanapista is quite crowded and full of elderly people, so it’s not the best place to be noisy. By 4:00 PM the wind was calmer, so we went to the island of Tsougria for the last part of the day; it was beautiful there, maximum 15 people on the island so we could finally relax and soak up the sun. Of course, we couldn’t pass the opportunity of pretending to be stranded on a deserted island… At 6:00PM we had to bring the boat back to Stafanos.

The evenings:

We were determined to go clubbing at least a few times. But after all the daily activities, we found ourselves too tired to do it, so we didn’t even get to the Club Strip (that’s the name of the street where all the clubs, disco’s and bars are). Instead, we chose to go for a drink in the old port (9 euro/cocktail) or get something to eat in the city.

The city is quite small, just one main street (no access for cars), and a couple of small paved streets. There are plenty of places to buy souvenirs from, like traditional food, jewelry and clothes.

Once there was an electricity black-out, which caught us at a restaurant in the old port and lasted for about one hour. Not that I don’t like candle-light dinners, but after 30 minutes I was getting a bit tired of all the romance and started wishing for the electricity to come back J

Food:

I was a little bit disappointed by this chapter. I expected all the restaurant to offer a great variety of fish and sea-food. The reality was a little different: maybe because of all the British tourists, most restaurants offered international dishes, and only a few traditional dishes. However, I ate as much frid calamari as my stomach could bare (8 euro/portion), some grilled gilthead, olive paste, saganaky (fried feta cheese, 4 euro), sun-dried tomato salad and tzatziki (3 euro). The best place we ate at was at Captain Mihalis (bus stop no 24, across Strofilia lake). The captain was an old guy, very friendly and with a great sense of humor. He used to give us something “from the house”, like fresh figs or ouzo. Puf was more into the local tavernas where he ate gyros, souvlaky and tons of tzatzikyi. Tavernas could be found on each and every beach, even the secluded ones (I often wondered how they got the fresh fish and vegetables there every day).

Leaving the island:

I felt like we had just got there and there was already time to leave…On Sunday morning there was a big thunder storm, our hotel room was flooded and our luggage was soaked in water. I admit at one point I had some hopes that the plane would not be able to leave and we would have to stay there for a couple more days…all I got was a 3 hours delay L

I was sad to leave, if only we had one more week to do it all over again, this time knowing exactly where to go and what to do…it’s a place where everybody can be pleased: it just depends on what you chose to do – it can be quiet and relaxing, it can be adventurous, it can be fun and noisy, it can be breathtaking and spectacular.

In the end, Skiathos is an island where you just have to find your own Paradise, whatever Paradise means for you ...

That's what it means for me ... THE END