Photo: Ag. Ioannis
Φωτογραφία: Αγ. Ιωάννης
Σκόπελος/Skopelos is the island on which Mamma Mia was filmed several years ago (was it really as far back as 2008!?). In fact, our accommodation in Στάφυλος/Stafylos was where some of the cast and crew stayed during filming.
Today we did our own mini-tour of the places of interest: We first drove to Ag. Ioannis/Αγ. Ιωάννης and walked up to the chapel which was used in the wedding scene.
There is a beach there too, which was quite small. There were quite a few boats – yachts as well as big tourist boats which meant the beach was at times quite crowded. As one boat left another started arriving and we took this as an excuse to make a move.
We had lunch in the small café at the top of the hill before returning to the car. Our next stop was Καστάνι/Kastani which was the beach used for the jetty scenes in the film. The jetty was only a temporary structure built by the film crew and dismantled after filming.
Both beaches were very good with very clear water – very good for snorkelling, or in my case, just swimming aimlessly, or floating about lazily,) before realising that I’m quite a long way out and should probably turn around to swim/float lazily back to shore.
For the evening we went to a small café a short distance from where we are staying. Named ‘Rosemary’ the café seems to be just one guy who runs it all himself. It’s located on the main road coming out of town and I suspect that’s where most of his trade comes from – people passing who just want to stop for a quick bite to eat.
Despite being on the main road it was quite quiet. He does 2 specials each day, a number of pies freshly made. The portions were very generous and I couldn’t manage all my pork shank.
There was a well-fed looking cat wandering about too. Seeing a cat in a restaurant is not unusual for Greece (even the petrol station just down the road is home to a family of cats); cats are everywhere! There are a lot of feral cats but also a lot who have the luxury of a bed to sleep on at night. The waiter introduced the cat to us: “This is my cat, I call her Merkel because she’s sweet – like Madame Merkel”.
We are now 1 week in to our holiday with 1 week to go. Our holidays always seem to fly by, and for days afterwards I wake up thinking “this time last week I was…” Thoughts have not yet turned to the journey back home but I have already started thinking about where I might go on holiday next year. The only trouble is, there are so many places all over Europe (in particular, in Greece and Germany) that I want to go to, it may take me the best part of 20 years to get to them all.
On that note: Next year will be 20 years since my first holiday to Greece. In May 1998 we went to Corfu – I wasn’t quite 6 years old then. I’ve been coming back ever since, usually to a different place each year.
It’s approaching midnight so I’m off to bed now.
Καληνύχτα.
Φρεντ.