Skópelos

Area of island: 96 sq. km/37 sq. mi

Chief place: Skópelos

Skópelos, known in antiquity, down to the A.D. third century, as Peparethos, is a hilly and well wooded island in the Northern Sporades. The steep northeast coast is unwelcoming, and, apart from the wide bay of Skópelos near the east end, without inlets or irregularities of any consequence, and the gentler southeast coast is also relatively featureless.

View a slideshow of Skopelos Pictures

The fertile areas on the island are mainly devoted to the growing of almonds and fruit (particularly plums; dried fruit packing station in Skópelos town). In many convents the nuns make woven goods and other craft products for sale. The tourist trade also makes a contribution to the island's economy.

The oldest traces of human settlement date from the Neolithic period. The ancient city of Peparethos was said to have been founded by the Cretan hero Staphylos, son of Dionysos and Ariadne. In the so-called Tomb of Staphylos gold jewellery, idols, a variety of implements and utensils and Minoan double axes were found; they are now in the museum in Vólos. The archeological evidence indicates, however, that from an early stage the inhabitants of the island were influenced by Mycenaean rather than Minoan culture.

After the seventh century Skópelos prospered, and the tribute it paid as a member of the first Attic maritime league was substantial. The Peloponnesian War, however, quickly and finally put an end to its prosperity. Thereafter it had a succession of different masters - Macedonians, Romans, Byzantines, Venetians and finally Turks - who allowed this remote and economically unimportant community a considerable measure of autonomy. In 1830 it was reunited with Greece.

Regular services from Áyios Konstantínos and Vólos, several times daily (four and a half hours in each case); also from Kymi (Euboea), three times weekly (three and a half hours).

Related Attractions

Skopelos Town (Khora), Greece

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.

Churches & Monasteries

Of the 360 churches, chapels and monasteries on the island of Skópelos the most interesting are the Evangelístria monastery (1712), above Skópelos town to the west, which has a 10th century icon of the Mother of God framed in silver; the 16th century Metamorfósis monastery southeast of Skópelos, the oldest on the island; the Áyios Taxiárkhos monastery, with an early Christian church (A.D. 672) in the forecourt; the monastery of the Panayía Livadiótissa (17th C.), on the east side of the island, with an icon of 1671 by the Cretan painter A. Agorastos; the Pródromos monastery (1721), also on the east side; the abandoned monastery of Ayía Varvára (1648); the ruined Episkopí monastery, southwest of Skópelos, with a church of 1078; the church of Áyios Reyínos, the island's first bishop and patron saint, to the south of the town (mid fourth C.); and the church of the Zoodókhos Piyí, with a wonderworking icon said to have been painted by St Luke himself.