June 28, 2017 – COHN17

during my three year stay in greece, i managed to visit at least one island in each of the six major groupings, plus crete and evia, two large islands that stand on their own. after tinos, i had been to five of the six – the ionian, the dodecanese, the argo-saronic, the northeastern aegean, and the cyclades – so the next weekend, i went to the sixth, the sporades, choosing the island skopelos as my destination. skopelos is known, among other things, as the island where part of the film mamma mia was shot, so if it was good enough for meryl streep and pierce brosnan, it was good enough for me.

the trip took about four hours by ferry.

the water was incredibly blue.

skopelos town is a typical greek harbor town: built into a hill, a prominently-featured church, and lots of narrow pedestrian alleys (lined equally with local-serving businesses and tourist shops) and stairways flanked by houses, all leading down to the main road along the harbor.

the view from my hotel room.

in many respects, the photos that i took over the weekend all show the same thing – brilliant blue skies and water, dramatic ocean views, cute villages – so let’s cut to the chase: the church of agios (saint) ioannis kastri, which was featured in mamma mia. visitors to the sporades are somehow obligated to see the church, or at least are subject to incredulous gasps of horror from abba fans if they don’t, so i went on a drizzly sunday morning.

the church itself is not particularly interesting in terms of either architecture or decoration; in fact, it doesn’t even appear to merit its own wikipedia page, and that’s saying a lot. instead, it’s the setting that’s the attraction.