Skiathos

In 480 BC the fleet of the Persian king Xerxes was battered by a storm on the rocks off Skiathos, and the Greek fleet then held the seas nearby while the Spartans defended Thermopylae; afterwards the island joined the Delian League. Its ancient city, on the site of today's town, was destroyed by Philip V of Macedon in 200 BC.

In 1207 the Venetian brothers Geremia and Andrea Ghisi took the island and built the Bourtzi, a small fortress on an islet off the town, but it could not stop pirate raids, and in the mid-14th century the islanders moved to Kastro, a fortified settlement on a cliff at the island's northern tip. Skiathos passed back to Byzantium in the 1270s, to Venice after 1453, and to the Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa in 1538. The Evangelistria monastery, founded by monks from Mount Athos in the 18th century, became a hiding place for rebels, and in 1807 Theodoros Kolokotronis, Andreas Miaoulis and others swore an oath there on a newly designed Greek flag.

After independence the islanders left Kastro in 1829 and resettled the harbour site. Pine forests made Skiathos an important shipbuilding centre in the 19th century, until steamships ended the trade and the woods, nearly felled, grew back. In 1964 the Greek National Tourism Organisation made the island a development zone for tourism; the coast road to Koukounaries, the first large hotel and, in 1984, the airport followed, transforming Skiathos into one of the best-known resort islands in the Aegean.

Skiathos is above all the island of Alexandros Papadiamantis (1851–1911), counted among the greatest Greek authors, whose stories portray country life on Skiathos as well as the poorer neighbourhoods of Athens; the house where he grew up, built by his father in 1860, is a museum. The poet and prose writer Zisis Oikonomou was also a Skiathos resident.

The island's religious life centres on its churches and on the Evangelistria monastery, which keeps the loom on which the first Greek flag was woven and celebrates the Annunciation every 25 March. Families from Asia Minor who settled on the island after 1922 added their own traditions. In 2008 Skiathos and neighbouring Skopelos were filming locations for the film Mamma Mia!.

Tourism shapes the island's character in summer: the town fills with visitors from across Europe, bars and clubs line the shore north-east of the port, and the airport's short runway, where planes pass low over a public road, has become an attraction in its own right. In winter the island returns to its small resident community, and the rhythm becomes that of a quiet Aegean town.

The municipality of Skiathos, which covers the island and its islets, had about 5,800 residents at the 2021 census; the town held about 4,900 people in 2011, and the next largest settlements are hamlets of a few hundred or fewer. In summer the residents are vastly outnumbered by visitors.

Tourism is the island's economy. Hotels, rented rooms, tavernas, boat trips, car and moped hire and shops depend on a season that runs roughly from May to October, and the airport's charter flights and the ferries from Volos and Agios Konstantinos bring most of the visitors. Farmland survives around the town and the villages, and a small shipyard north of the town still builds traditional wooden caiques.

Life in the town follows the season. Summer days are long and busy, with traffic on the coast road, crowded buses and late nights at the port; winter brings a reduced bus service and a slower pace centred on the school, the churches and the cafés of the harbour. Tourist building along the coast road has transformed the island since the 1960s, and in the early 2000s islanders protested against a mining scheme and a power line.

Eating on Skiathos follows the Greek island pattern. Tavernas around the old port and in the lanes above it serve grilled fish and seafood alongside the meze of mainland Greece — tzatziki, grilled octopus, fried cheese saganaki and horiatiki, the village salad of tomato, cucumber, onion, olives and feta. Souvlaki sellers, wrapping grilled meat in pita, are dotted around the town and near the beaches, and frozen yoghurt has become common on Papadiamanti Street.

From the wider Sporades come pies of the kind that every region of Greece makes in filo, and neighbouring Skopelos is known for its coiled, fried cheese pie and its prunes. Baked dishes such as moussaka and gemista, stuffed vegetables, are the staples of the taverna menu. The Evangelistria monastery has planted vineyards for Alypiakos, a red muscat wine.

To drink there is beer and ouzo, poured with meze, and tsipouro, the grape brandy of Thessaly. Desserts are the Greek ones: yoghurt with honey and walnuts, loukoumades and baklava. Tap water is not drinkable on the island, and ice in restaurants is supplied by specialist companies.