Skopelos

Skopelos is the greenest island in Greece, and it feels it the moment you arrive. Pine forest covers almost the whole island, spilling down the hillsides until it meets the sea, so that the coastline reads as a single wash of deep green giving way to deep blue. It is a landscape with no hard edges, and it sets the pace for everything here.

Most visitors know the island from the screen: the cliffside chapel of Agios Ioannis, the turquoise cove at Kastani, the whitewashed houses tumbling down to the water. But the fame sits lightly. Step beyond the harbour and Skopelos is quiet again, a place of hidden beaches reached by winding lanes, plum orchards and small monasteries tucked into the hills.

Its two towns hold the island's heart. Skopelos Town rises in tiers of white houses above the port, laced with narrow lanes and hillside chapels, while old Glossa looks out over the sea from the north. Both keep an unhurried, traditional feel, with tavernas serving what the island grows and long lunches that stretch into the afternoon.

With our drivers, guides and local captains based across the Sporades, Skopelos opens up slowly and on your terms: a cove that stays empty long after the film tours have gone, a forest path to a hillside monastery, a table where the day's catch arrives straight from the water. You arrive, and the island unfolds around you.