Thread: Travelog from Lesvos, Greece

Every year we (we meaning me and my wife) go for a few weeks to sunny Greece. This year we decided on going to the third largest island in Greece, Lesvos, and to the picturesque town of Molyvos. We live in a rather cold place; a small town in Norway called Tromsø, so a few weeks with 35 degrees centigrade (95 degrees fahrenheit) is a necessity every year, and especially my wife really looks forward to these weeks every winter when we have 5 feet of snow outside our door. Molyvos has a lot of history, it is said that Achilies once conquerd the castle at Molyvos on the way to Troy. It is also the birth place of the poet Sappho, wich is somewhat of an icon for all the lesbians in the world.

The town of Molyvos is probably one of the most beautiful towns in the world (no kidding). It is located on the north side of the island, and you can actually see the Turkish mainland a few miles away if you look north. The town is built around a small hill with a castle (the Gatellusi castle) on top. The town is on the UNESCO list of world heritage, so every new building in the town has to be built in the old style, witch means in stone and with red shingled roofs.


Picture: view from the entrance of Molyvos up to the castle


The town is built on the hill itself, so every road in town is narrow, steep and built of cobblestone. It is so nice to walk in the old town, where store after store line up on the steep roads selling everything from local made products to fake designer products.

Every night there is a fantastic sunset, and a lot of people gather down in the harbour to watch it. we found the best view to be from one of the restaurants high up on the old town, and especially from the roof of the restaurant Gatos.


Picture: Sunset viewed from the Gatos restaurant

As I have already mentioned, the roads in Molyvos are both steep and narrow. But that doesn’t stop the Greeks from driving them. The streets are so narrow that two cars can not pass each other, but still the roads are not one-way streets. The Greeks and their driving habits can scare even seasoned drivers. Both traffic rules and road signs seems to be just guidance, and the only thing you can be sure about is that if there is a "no parking allowed" sign, there is a car parked there, even if there is available parking 20 feet away.

On other Greek islands we have visited there has been a lot of ugly driving by the locals, dangerous overtaking and a lot of aggression, using the horn often. On Lesvos there was not a lot of this kind of behaviour. There was still a lot of aggression and using the horn, but not many dangerous situations. The whole island is just up and down, and the roads are so narrow and there are so many serpentine turns that you really never can drive fast, and the locals seemed so used to this fact that they where never in a hurry.

The nightmare while driving on Lesvos is getting stuck behind a bus or a lorry, there are so few places to overtake them, that you are stuck behind them until they let you pass or they drive in a different direction than you in an intersection.

We had a car for 10 days of our 14 day stay on the island, so we drove around a lot and had to rely on the Greek road-map we had bought. One day we where headed from Skala Kaloni to Madamados (to have a look at a big monastery) we had to drive through Agia Paraskievi to get there. As soon as I see a sight with “Madamados” on it, I follow that sign, but of course that leads us on to some sort of a dirt road meant to be used by tractors. After a few hundred meters we turn around and decides to head back in to Agia Paraskievi to find a better road, but the streets are so narrow that there is no way that two cars can pass each other, and of course we a car we cant pass in any way, so I have to start reverse and do a 90 degree turn in to an even narrower side street.

One day while out driving we decided to try and find “The bridge at Kremasti”, witch is a stone bridge built around 1355 and still in use today. Our road map tells us that it should be a short drive on a secondary road, and secondary roads had proven to be real nice roads of good quality witch always where with tarmac. But not this one, it was a dirt road of the worst quality I have ever seen. Not only that, but we also got stuck behind a herd of around a hundred sheep, who wouldn’t get of the road so we could pass. After a few kilometres we finally find the bridge, but our struggles are not over, because right after the bridge there are several intersections with hand painted Greek signs (and of course the Greek alphabet is not the same as ours), luckily my wife has taken the time to learn what the different letters means so somehow we find the right roads, and after 9 kilometres on a dirt road we are back on the main road. I am still amazed that our rental car (a really tired old Hyundai Accent) didn’t break down.


Picture: the bridge at Kremasti

While we where driving towards a town on the west coats called Sigri, we suddenly see a monastery on top of the highest mountain for miles around, I cant remember the name of the monastery, but it is one of the coolest monasteries I have ever seen, and I told my wife on the spot that if I ever where to become a monk, that is where I would stay! Of course we had to go up and look at the monastery, and the view from the top was amazing (it was situated on top of a 600 meter/2000 feet mountain).


Picture: Monastery on top of the mountain



Picture: the view from the monastery

One of the things I look most forward to while in Greece is the food. Many people say they don’t like the food, and that it is drab, but when I ask them a bit more about I find out that all they have eaten are suvlakis with chips (a suvlaki is a spit of chicken, steak or veal). Of course 14 days with a dry suvlaki would have me bored to, but there is so much more to the Greek kitchen. Personally I love a lot of the seafood they have. Everything is so fresh (caught the same day) and either grilled or fried. Be a little bit bold, order something you really don’t know what is, like one of the many stews, some octopus or one of the million other things the Greek kitchen has to offer!

Naturally we visited a lot of restaurants; we ate both lunch and dinner out, and most of the places we ate at where really nice, but of course there where places where the food tasted really bad or the service was horrible. One of these places where in the harbour of Molyvos at the Octopus restaurant, the service was absolutely horrible! First of all it took ages before we could order, and when we had ordered it took about an hour before we got our food (this is exceptionally long in Greece, usually it takes around 15 minutes tops), and we could see that that was the case for everybody else to. When we wanted to get our check, no waiter wanted to listen to me, they just ran past, so it all ended up with me shouting “HEY” From the top of my lungs when a waiter hasted by, to get my check. An older English gentleman on our neighbour table just shook his head at the waiter and ask me how long I had to wait before I did that. I told him I had tried to get our check for the past 10 minutes, which was nothing he told me, he and his wife had been sitting there for 15 minutes without even getting the menu, but now he would try my method, as it seemed it was the only way that would work! At least the food was really good, but I would never go back.

The best restaurant we visited was without a doubt the Gatos restaurant I have mentioned earlier. All the waiters had on the same outfit, black trousers, white shirt and a apron (This is not at all common, usually nobody wears the same on a Greek tavern, they run around in regular clothes so you have no idea who is a customer and who is a waiter), and both the service and food was superb!

Luckily we had a car most of the stay, the town of Molyvos can be as beautiful as it wants, but the beach was horrible. Narrow (only 2-3 meters wide), no sand, huge stones that was hard to walk on, and quite a lot of thrash on the beach.


Picture: The beach at Molyvos

We found a few beaches that where a lot better, and we drove to those beaches every day we had the car. Our favourite beaches was without a doubt the beaches of Anaxos and Skala Kaloni. Both beaches with nice sand and a short way to a tavern.

The beach at Anaxos was not to suitable for kids, it was quite a lot of waves, so it could be a bit dangerous. The beach at Skala Kaloni on the other hand would be perfect for those travelling with children. Skala Kaloni is situated within the hughe gulf of Kaloni, so there were not any waves at all, and you would have to walk 50 meters from land to even have water over your knees!



Picture: The beach at Skala Kaloni

I have already mentioned that Lesvos is somewhat of a shrine for all the lesbians of the world. And the term “lesbian” has its origin from here. The ancient Greek poet Sappho lived on the island (born around 630 BC), she is widely famous for her poems and her love for her own gender. Of course the Lesbians (the inhabitants of Lesvos) are not too happy with this link, as they feel a bit stigmatized by the use of the word lesbian. It has gone so far that the inhabitants of the island have sued the Greek gay interest group over the use of the word.

There is no hiding that there is a lot of lesbians on vacation on this island, and they are not afraid to show that they are lesbian (witch I have absolutely no problem with). When I then mention that most of those lesbians love to sunbath topless, the male community here on SRP might sit up straight and wonder if maybe they should take their next vacation on Lesvos. I am sorry, but I have to disappoint you, they are not young, and they look like a cross-section of a regular person around 40. That meaning they are not supermodels.. I noticed that a lot of them had a strange fascination of taking pictures of each other topless in the water, every day they would pose for each other and fire away with their cameras. All I know is that if I told my wife to drop here bikini top and go pose in the water for me to take pictures, I would have to find my self a new place to sleep for the rest of the trip!

There is a lot of animal life on Lesvos. The island is famous for all it birds, and especially for its huge flamingo colony (we where told it was several hundred thousand birds). But the only close encounter with an animal while on Lesvos for us where when a small bat found it’s way in to our bedroom one night we where about to go to sleep. My wife where in the bathroom at the moment and she hears me shout out “what the ****”, before I tell here to get in to our bedroom to help me. She freaks out when she sees it’s a bat, so she grabs a sheet and stands in a corner while she tells me to get that freaking thing out of here! That is easier said than done, as the bat is really fast, and it is not just to open a window! It just flies in circles around in our room, and refuses to fly out the window (Probably it couldn’t find it, as it flies on a sonar and the window is to small). In the end I get it out by pushing it in the right direction with a
pillow, and we can finally go to sleep!

We stayed on the island for 14 days, and we had a blast! We have been to Greece a lot of times before, but this is without a doubt the best holiday we have ever had in the country. Everything was just perfect with living in Molyvos, and I can recommend it to anybody who asks. So if you fellow member ever has a chance to go there, you really should.

I have more pictures from our trip on Picasa if anybody wants to have a look: http://picasaweb.google.com/R.Gjemme...eeceAugust2008

Arlendius

Thanks for the travelogue, it sounds like a nice trip and the pictures are great. I've always wanted to visit Greece, maybe someday...

The next time you go to Greece send me a ticket, I will be your best friend! The place looks great!