Skopelos
— — the white chapel on the rock you already half-remember.
Not only on a wall.
“Skopelos rises out of the Aegean in a cone of pine and limestone, second of the Sporades after Skiathos. Whitewashed houses climb the hill above Chora harbour, slate-grey roofs steepening as they go. Out on the eastern coast, the chapel of Agios Ioannis stands on its rock above the water, the one the Mamma Mia crew climbed in 2007. Plum orchards run along the inland valleys.
Skopelos, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Skopelos sits in the Northern Sporades, roughly forty nautical miles east of the Pelion peninsula in central Greece. The island covers about 96 square kilometres and rises to 681 metres at Mount Delphi. Most of the interior is covered in Aleppo and black pine, the densest forest cover of any Aegean island. The main settlement, Chora, faces northeast across a sheltered bay, with the smaller villages of Glossa and Elios on the western side. Ferries arrive from Volos and from Skiathos throughout the year, with high-speed catamarans added in summer.
The chapel of Agios Ioannis sto Kastri, John of the Castle, sits on a near-vertical limestone outcrop above Agios Ioannis Beach on the eastern coast. A flight of 105 stone steps climbs from the saddle to a single whitewashed church under a barrel-vaulted slate roof. The chapel is named for an icon said to have been hidden there during Byzantine times. In 2007 the wedding scene of the film Mamma Mia was shot at the summit, and the climb has been steady ever since. The chapel is still consecrated and used for occasional services.
Skopelos opens slowly. Most beach tavernas and the small island ferries to Glysteri and Limnonari run from late April through October, with the season's heart from mid-June to mid-September. The plum harvest comes in August, the prune cake called hamali appears at every bakery soon after. Aegean Meltemi winds blow from the north in July and August and lay down hard. Winter rains return in November and the pine forest darkens; many shops in Chora close until Easter.