Skiathos Family Summer Holiday - Mamma Mia!

On 16th August 2019, we set out on our family summer holiday to Skiathos.

As a family we had never been to Greece before, only as a couple in our pre-children days.

Our two girls really wanted to visit Greece and being avid “Mamma Mia” fans, the choice of Skiathos with the opportunity to visit Skopelos seemed the perfect choice for us.

I had been to Skiathos previously as girl of 20, so to go back and visit the island some 28 years later, was a fabulous experience, bizarrely although development had taken place Skiathos still held all the same charm and appeal of a stunningly beautiful Greek islands as it did almost 30 years previous.

We stayed in the gorgeous resort of Troulos on the south coast of Skiathos, this has a handful of bars, great restaurants and a beautiful sandy beach with some beachside taverna’s too.

The most appealing thing about Skiathos no matter where you stay, is that all the resorts are connected along the coast road from Skiathos Town through to Koukounaries. There is a fabulous bus service that run every 10-15 minutes in each direction from Skiathos Town and again from Koukounaries, with all locations easily identified as bus stop 1 in Skiathos town to bus top 26 in Koukounaries.

During our stay we visited beautiful beaches like, Troulos, Vassilias, Aghia Paraskevi, Koukounaries and Kanapitsa to name but a few.

We took water taxis between Skiathos town and beach resorts along the coast, we had a fabulous day cruise over to Skopelos, to see the outdoor location of the infamous chapel, where Mamma Mia was filmed (and did the walk to the top), complete with “Abba” tunes on the boat, with an opportunity to have lunch in Skopelos and a mooch around Skopelos Town.

We liked Skopelos so much that the week after we took the ferry and stayed overnight in Skopelos town before sailing back the next day to Skiathos, it’s extremely easy to take the ferries between Skiathos, Skopleos and Alonissos islands and even to locations on the Greek mainland too, so perfect for island hopping.

We had an evening out in Skiathos town and stayed at the 4* Mystery hotel with a fabulous meal at Basilikos Restaurant, all topped off with a screening at the “outdoor” cinema of the original Mamma Mia film – our girls were in “Holiday heaven” with this experience.

We hired a jeep for two days and visited beaches along the coast which aren’t easily accessible due to the poor roads, such as Aghia Eleni, Mandraki and Agistros Beach. We also drove to the Skiathos Dog Shelter, which do fabulous work with stray and sick dogs and re homing them, for a small donation you are able to take the dogs out for a walk, which the girls loved and we also were able to couple that with a visit to the beautiful monastery of Panaghia Kounistra too.

On one of the evenings we did a tour of Skiathos town with our tour operator rep, with all fees for the tour being donated to their supported children’s charity, this gave us a great opportunity to find some cliff side restaurants with stunning views over the sea and Tsougria island too.

The cuisine and service at every single restaurant we dined at was fabulous, a particular mention for “Infinity Blue” stunning sea food restaurants where we managed to watch the most amazing sunset whilst eating our evening meal.

Despite the fact that we did so much during our two week stay, I really would like to go back to Skiathos and these Sporades islands to do some island hopping and sample all the stunning beauty that these destinations have to offer.

I would have no hesitation in recommending Skiathos to couples, families, singles and even people who want to do a long stay holiday over the summer season.