A walk to Kastro

Andrew in his wanderings over hill and dale has been exploring the island by bus and on foot.  Next week we plan to hire a car for a day.

The runway at the airport.

Skiathos town.

The Kastro (old town) was founded in the 14th century.  Because of pirates in the area, the people of Skiathos deserted the Byzantine town in the harbour and built the fortress in the hills with houses built close to each other all around it, which was the Kastro.  It could not be approached from the sea.  In 1829 the people deserted the Kastro and moved back down to the harbour where the present town is.  The Kastro was totally abandoned.  It is said that the population had been between 500 and 1500 people and about 400 houses and 20 churches.  Only two of the churches and no houses survive to this day.

The panels inside one of the surviving churches.

These are photos of the lovely wild coast on the island.

Some more photos of this lovely island.

Today we we went to the "one over the eight" lunch.  Mike and Carol provide a lunch each trip for those people who have attended more than 8 Diamond Bridge holidays.  They kindly invited us as Australians as we have four times as far to travel as anyone else.  This lady, Maureen Norman, was presented a special prize as this was her 60th holiday with Diamond Bridge!

We had some very bad weather in the last few days but it is sunny again now thank goodness.

The beach while it was overcast and the sea choppy.  But there was bridge every day while the weather was bad so it was not all bad. 😉