Arriving at Skopelos

After our celebratory drinks at the gyros hut last night, we all woke up a bit the worse for wear. It was check-out day in Athens, moving onto the Greek Isles.

We managed to get up just in time to grab a plate of breakfast before the staff at our hotel started taking away everything. I don’t think a glass of juice has ever gone down so well. We packed our bags and made our way down to check out of the hotel. The man behind the counter asked us where we were headed.
“Skopelos, very beautiful.”
I was certainly looking forward to it.

With our tickets we purchased 2 days earlier, we caught a bus across the Greek countryside to a port city where we would catch a ferry to our next destination.

On the way there, we stopped off at a BP service station/food place. There must have been an army barracks nearby, because a couple of bus loads of recruits for their national service were there. They were a bit intimidating, all sitting together in their uniforms (but no pompoms on these guys and girls), until an officer came along and obviously told them to get on the bus. Hehe- see them jump to then!

The total bus trip to the port took just over 2 hours from Athens, and we were running late, but still managed to be there about 20 minutes before the ferry arrived. The Hellenic Seaways Speedcat 1 was a mighty vessel – it only took about 5 minutes to get to the dock after appearing on the horizon. It was able to seat roughly 200 people, would take a little over 2 hours to arrive at Skopelos, and had an extensive DVD collection, which they chose to play an old Samo Hung classic movie in Chinese with Greek subtitles. I think there were bad guys, and a school for talented martial-arty kids, but don’t quote me on that – I think it lost a bit in the translation. Dr Doolittle pulled out her iPhone, and we amused ourselves with a game of Monopoly. Unfortunately Lapzang won, and we didn’t hear the end of it for the rest of the ferry ride.

After dropping most of the passengers off at Skaithos (the major party island), we finally arrived on Skopelos. Looking out the window as we approached, I was blown away by how beautiful it looked. The buildings covering the hill (what I later learned was the ‘Old Town’ – over 500 years old) looked just amazing.
I had been quite concerned about this part of the trip, as I hadn’t been able to book accommodation, but had it under good authority that there would be locals waiting at the port for people to come along and rent a pension off them (a small studio apartment). As we got off the boat, we couldn’t see anybody at all in that category, and I started to get really worried. We made our way through the gates of the port and were then mobbed by half a dozen people walking around saying “Room? Room?”
The first one to approach us was an older man, who introduced himself as Vasil, and I chose to stay with him, as his pension was only 30 Euro a night. He loaded my bag into the back of his little beaten up white car, and drove me to his house, pointing out the original hotel on the island, a taverna that his friend ran, the ‘oil station’ (petrol station), and a place to hire a scooter if I wanted.

We drove down the street to his house, with amazing views on either side, where he had 3 pensions lining his drive-way, with his house at the end of it. The pension was small, a single room with a bathroom, but it was bigger than our room in Athens, it had only me, had air-con and a fridge and a stove… everything that I would need for a couple of days stay.

After a brief shower, I headed back into town to meet up with Lapzang and Dr Doolittle, and found them being brought along the road by Vasil, who had obviously headed back into town to try to find somebody else to stay in one of the pensions, and was telling them all about the island. He introduced us to his friend at the taverna, who promised us a very cheap and good meal if we ate there.

We had a wander around the town and familiarized ourselves with where everything was, and I think that after only spending about 3 hours on the island, I was starting to fall in love with it. It was truly a little slice of heaven on earth. Just absolutely breathtaking.

We went back to the taverna for a bite to eat, tried several different dishes, which were all fantastic. The only problem was the glass of Ouzo that the owner brought out to us at the end of the meal, as none of us could stand the stuff, and we spent the next 5 minutes trying to figure out how to dispose of it without him noticing.

Feeling quite full after dinner, we went for a walk along the port road, to the end of the wharf, and looking back onto the town there were lights all up the hill in the darkness, with a very vibrant night-life going on in the town.

We decided to call it quits at that point, as Vasil had convinced us to go and check out the beach at Malia, which is where the film Mama Mia was shot. It was a nice wander back to the pension, and I went to sleep with images of me spending the rest of my life on this island.