Glossa, Skopelos

Where it sits. Glossa hangs on the north-western shoulder of Skopelos at roughly 200 metres above the sea, looking across a five-kilometre channel to Skiathos. The name means tongue, and the village is exactly that shape: a long ribbon of houses following the contour of the slope rather than clustering around a square. The 2021 census counted about 970 people in the wider community, which takes in the hamlets of Atheato and Loutraki, the small port directly below at the foot of a set of hairpins. Glossa is the second settlement of the island and its character is markedly different from the Chora at the other end — fewer boutiques, more washing lines, houses in ochre and pale blue with tiled roofs and external stone staircases, and an evening rhythm that belongs to the villagers rather than to visitors.

The chapel on the rock. Four kilometres east of the village, reached by a signed side road off the coast road toward the Cape of Agios Ioannis, a whitewashed chapel stands on top of a near-vertical monolith about a hundred metres above the water. This is Agios Ioannis sto Kastri, and it is the reason a steady trickle of people make the drive out from the Chora every day of the season. A stairway hacked and mortared into the flank of the rock climbs from a small parking area at the beach; the step count is usually given as just under two hundred, and the exposed final flight is a handrail-and-concentration affair rather than a stroll. The chapel itself is a single vaulted room a few metres across with an iconostasis, some hanging lamps and a bell, and the doorway frames the open Aegean.

On screen. This is the wedding chapel from Mamma Mia!, shot here in the late summer of 2007 — the procession toiling up the rock in white linen is the single most reproduced image the film produced. What the film does not tell you is that the interior you see is not this building: the real room could not hold a camera crew and a congregation, so the inside was built as a set at Pinewood Studios in England, along with the whole of Donna's hotel. The exterior work, the stairway and the sea beyond are all genuine. Since the film the chapel has become a working wedding venue for foreign couples, booked through the local diocese and a handful of island planners, and on summer mornings there is sometimes a queue on the steps.

Practicalities on the rock. It is a functioning Orthodox chapel, so shoulders and knees covered, no swimwear, and quiet inside. Opening is unpredictable — a caretaker unlocks it in the morning and often closes by the early afternoon — and the stairway itself is always open. Go early: by eleven the rock is in full sun with no shade at all, the stone gets hot enough to feel through thin soles, and in a strong meltemi the upper steps are genuinely windy. There is a small pebble beach at the foot of the rock and a seasonal cafe. No bus goes directly; the island bus stops in Glossa and the last stretch needs a car, a taxi or a forty-minute walk downhill and a considerably less enjoyable one back up.

What the village gives you. Glossa is where to eat on this half of Skopelos. Two or three long-established tavernas occupy terraces looking over the roofs to Skiathos, and the sunset from the western edge of the village is the best on the island precisely because Skiathos and the mainland mountains give the horizon something to do. The village keeps the traditional Skopelitiki architecture in a plainer form than the Chora, and the old church of Agios Ioannis Prodromos and the ruined windmills above the houses are worth the ten minutes it takes to find them. Below, Loutraki has a handful of fish tavernas along a working jetty and is the arrival point for some hydrofoils, which means it is possible to reach Glossa from Skiathos without ever seeing Skopelos Town.

Getting there and timing. The Chora is 25 kilometres away by a road that runs the length of the wooded west coast, roughly forty minutes by car and an hour by the public bus, which runs several times daily between May and October and only a couple of times a day in winter. Hydrofoils and catamarans from Skiathos, Volos and Agios Konstantinos call at Loutraki in season. May and June bring wildflowers and warm afternoons on the chapel steps without the August crowds; September and early October are quieter still, with the sea at its warmest. In winter the village keeps going but most of the visitor infrastructure — including the cafe at the chapel — shuts entirely, and the stairway in wet weather is not something to attempt casually.