Sporades Sea

Northeast of Euboea, the Northern Sporades lie scattered across the Aegean, their name meaning “the scattered ones.” Skiathos, the westernmost of the group, stands off the coast of Thessaly. In 480 BC a storm damaged the fleet of the Persian king Xerxes on rocks off the island. Much later, fear of pirates drove Skiathos's inhabitants to move their principal settlement to a steep rock above the sea, known as Kastro.