Skopelos Town & the south

Skopelos Town is the handsomest harbour town in the Sporades and it has stayed that way because the building rules held: grey slate roofs, wooden balconies, whitewash, and no concrete block on the waterfront. The lanes climb steeply from the quay to the ruins of the Venetian fortress at the top, past chapel after chapel — the town's church count is the local boast, and walking it is the main evening activity.

This is where the restaurants are, where the ferries from Volos and Skiathos dock, and where most of the island's beds are. It is also the one part of Skopelos where you can live without a car.

South of town the road drops to Stafylos and, over the headland, Velanio — the island's unofficial nudist beach — then runs on to Limnonari and Agnontas. Further round the empty southern tip, Amarandos is the cove used in the film that made this island famous, and Drakontoschisma is the cleft in the rock beside it. These are pebble and clear water rather than sand; Skopelos is a pine island, not a dune one.