Skopelos, You're One in a Million

The name Skopelos is certainly among Greece's greatest prides. Its features don't make it a common beauty in the Aegean Greek world, but make it rise among the other miniature island paradises the southern European state offers. Skopelos would be wrongly described as merely beautiful. To put it honest, it may be said it is unique in its beauty. It's impressive that it is perhaps the single Greek island that carries the fame of being the greenest island in the Mediterranean Sea.

And thinking that the Aegean archipelago was not blessed with astonishingly rich vegetation, it may be concluded that Skopelos is a genuine flower in the desert. Despite Greece's outstanding beauty, its barren terrain has made it hard to live in and offers a depressing sight to those seeking lush vegetation to enchant their eyes.

But here in Skopelos, it's different. The land is covered with healthy green vegetation all year round and there is perhaps more shade here to fight the scorching sun then anywhere else in Greece. While numerous other parts of Greece are dressed in pale patterns, a dazzling green suit makes Skopelos stand out of the crowd.

Where precisely is this paradise in miniature? The island is located off the coast of the Magnesia half-island, near the town of Volos. It is part of a local cluster of water surrounded worlds, known as the Northern Sporades islands. It has the largest size of all these tiny islands and a bizarre shape, which closely resembles a mechanical tool positioned upside down. Its municipality lies at the south-eastern edge and is named Chora, or Skopelos Town.

The island lies on a northwest-southeast axis and widens considerably to its south-eastern tip. Of course, as in the case of most of the planet's islands, it possesses a mountainous region at the centre. All islands are in fact the edges of high underwater mountains the highest portions of which peer outside of the sea. That is why Skopelos itself has mountains in its innermost regions and bushy, rocky hills as you advance to the shore.

We're talking here about the "Green and Blue Island", for thus was Skopelos christened by the International Organisation of Biopolitics, on July the 5th 1997. No other Greek island could have ever received this name. The blue in the title comes from the bright pattern of the sea, as reflected by the clear sky.

On October the 19th 1978 a presidential decree honoured the famed island by declaring it a Traditional Settlement of outstanding beauty. The place is rewarded each year for its lovely appearance financially, through the massive inflow of tourists which visit it to know better this slice of heaven. It's like in the case where a gorgeous woman captures the attention of the public and gets to bare beauty titles, but also receives large amounts of cash from her admirers.

The local industry is also flourishing. Agriculture and fishing have been practiced since ancient times. Wines and plumes are the pride of local producers. In Antiquity it was called Peparethos and was attacked by Philip II of Macedonia in 342 BC. A place which captured the attention of travellers ever since the dawn of human civilisation, that's Skopelos.

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