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Skyros
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Very green, with a pine forest covering a large part of the island, good beaches and some interesting traditional villages and costumes, Skyros is famous for its carnival celebration and 'goat' dancers which can be traced back to the ancient cult of Dionysos. The end of Carnival (Apokreas) like Mardi Gras marks the beginning of Lent, so if you want to visit Skyros, figure out when Orthodox Easter takes place, count back 40 days and then go the week before. The ferry to Skyros leaves from Kimi in Evia. The island is not easy to reach but this does not stop people from visiting it. It is also home to the Skyros Institute of Holistic Studies which offers programs in alternative therapies, yoga and even windsurfing. Skyros is also the grave of the English poet Rupert Brooke who died on the coast of Skyros in 1915 on a ship bound for Gallipoli.
How to get there
The fastest, but least reliable, way to get to Skyros is to fly. Every year at least one Greek airline provides this service, from Thessaloniki or Athens, or both.
Most people arrive by ferry from Paralia Kymis, Evia or (only in mid-summer) the Northern Sporades. There is at least one daily sailing from Evia (generally in the afternoon, to allow for transfers from Athens), returning early in the morning, but during peak hours - summer and Easter week - two trips a day can be made, around noon and early evening . Two or three times a week in the summer, the frequency drops to once a day because the same company's lone boat makes a trip to Alonissos and Skopelos, making a direct loop to Skyros directly or via Kymi.
History
Its strategic position in the Aegean Sea ensured that Skyros was settled anciently; sailing directly from the Dardanelles to Attica, it would have been the first landfall in a notoriously rough sea area. According to legend, the island's king Lykomedes sheltered a trapped young Achilles, escaped from the Trojan War, and pushed the deposed Athenian reigning hero Theseus to his death from the ramparts of the citadel, in a fit of jealousy. The island was a vital naval base for the ancient Athenians, Byzantines and Venetians (they remained for three centuries), and continued to be important and host foreign consuls until the 1800s. Unlike the Cyclades, Venetian rule did not produce a class of Catholics: Skyros remained staunchly Orthodox and Byzantine in habits, with bizarre and local female names (still extant) such as Amerissa and Faltaïna.
Skyros Beaches
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