Skopelos - Town Attractions Khóra

The chief place on the island of Skópelos bears the same name. The town lies in a wide unsheltered bay on the site of the ancient and the Byzantine capital. Its narrow lanes and whitewashed slate-roofed houses climb the slopes of the hill above the harbor, on which are the ruins of a Venetian castle and the foundations of a temple of Asklepios (fifth-fourth century B.C.). The flanks of the hill are covered with beautiful olive groves. The town is said to have some 120 churches and chapels, some of them dating from Byzantine times. The most notable are the churches of Áyios Athanásios (ninth-11th C.), built on the foundations of an ancient temple, and the Archangel Michael, with fine carved woodwork, icons and ancient gravestones. There are scanty remains of settlements at Pánormos on the south coast and round Glóssa, the site of ancient Selinous, on the northwest coast.