Road to Skiathos

For the ones who are accommodated in the mainland, there is a trip organized by the travel companies to Skiathos island. Because we were staying in Leptokarya, we were at two hour’s driving distance from Volos port. A double-decker picked us up from in front of the hotel at 6 a.m. and drove us down to the harbor. We arrived in Volos at 8:30 and two big tourist ships (courtesy of Elisabet Cruises) were waiting for us and a few other groups to gather.

The harbor was pretty calm when we got there, but very rapidly became a big crowd of agitation and excitement once all the tourist groups gathered. Once on board we finally found our sitting places and managed to look around a bit. I really liked the small but cozy-looking houses ashore, and all the olive trees that were growing in the gardens – a truly pretty (and very Greek) sight.

Although we already spent a lot of time on the bus, we were standing in front of another two and a half hours of sailing the sea. As we left the port, the boat/ship started going a lot faster and at one point started rocking really hard and the waves were awesome.

After an hour or so, we saw a huge marble exploitation on one of the hills with marble-cubes that must have weighed a few heavy tons. The site made me wonder how much work people here put in shaping all those pillars and figures and how representative marble is in Greek architecture.

After yet another hour of listening to Greek music and enjoying the wind in our faces, the surroundings start to change a bit. Rocks started to appear from nowhere, the hills became a little steeper, and -my favorite- some extremely nice (and very rich) villas popped up behind a few olive trees on these hills.

They finally announced on the speakerphone that we are next to SKiathos island and coming close to it’s “capital city”. And so we took a first glance at it: