Skopelos

Skopelos lies at the heart of the Sporades, between Skiathos to the west and Alonnisos to the east, and it is the greenest and most heavily forested of the group. Dense Aleppo pine covers much of the island and runs almost to the water's edge, so that beaches are backed by woods rather than bare hills, and the interior conceals plum and almond orchards, olive groves and hundreds of small chapels.

The main town, also called Skopelos (or Chora), is one of the most handsome in the Aegean, an amphitheatre of white houses with grey slate roofs climbing a steep bay around the harbour. Its lanes are threaded with churches, and the ruined Venetian kastro crowns the top of the town. At the north-west end of the island, the smaller port of Glossa and its harbour at Loutraki sit high above the sea, closer to Skiathos and quieter in character.

Skopelos reached a wider audience as the principal location for the 2008 film Mamma Mia, whose wedding scenes were shot at the tiny chapel of Agios Ioannis sto Kastri, perched on a rock pinnacle reached by more than a hundred steps cut into the cliff. The island wears the association lightly, and beyond the photographs it remains a place of forest walks, monasteries and swimming rather than resorts.

The beaches are mostly pebble and shingle set in pine-fringed coves, among them Panormos, Milia, Kastani and Stafylos, with clear, sheltered water on the protected south and west coasts. Inland, marked paths lead to monasteries above the town and to viewpoints over the whole archipelago.

Skopelos has no airport, so most visitors fly to neighbouring Skiathos and cross by frequent ferry, or come by sea from Volos on the Thessaly coast. That extra step keeps it a little quieter than Skiathos while sharing the same sparkling stretch of sea. Come for the pine-scented landscape, the beautiful main town, the good local cooking built around plums and cheese, and beaches that feel cut from the forest.