Monday morning we visited the monastery at Nea Moni, on top of the island, we actually were up in the clouds to a point we could only see about 20’ in front of the car. The monastery was constructed in the 12th century and tells a brutal history of past conflicts between the Ottoman Turks and the Greeks. In 1822, the Turks killed over 25,000 Greeks living on the island in reprisal for an uprising of the Greeks against the Turks as they sought independence from the Turks; including 3600 men, women, and children taking refuge in the monastery. Another 70,000 people were sold in the slave markets of Cairo and Smyrna (modern Izmir). After this massacre, the monks gathered up the bones and kept them in the monastery as a remembrance of the atrocity and DISPLAYED THEM! But, this is only one side of the centuries old, twisted, sordid story, the Greeks committed atrocities in Asia Minor and were promised land in Asia Minor by the British in WW I if Greece joined the war on the side of the Allies, of course the British did not honor the promise which led to another war between the Turks and the Greeks, so the animosity continues with ugly history from the time of the Crusades. In recent years, the two governments have tried to forge closer relationships and get beyond the past but the hatred, and mistrust runs deep on both sides.
Chios (pronounced (Hios) is the third largest island in the North Aegean group with about 12,500 inhabitants, it is a large commercial center and for centuries was known for the production of mastic, a gum made from the resin of mastic trees, for years the resin was used for a variety of products including chewing gum. Now it is sold in a variety of health type products promising a whole range of benefits.
We drove from the main town of Chios South to three smaller villages, Pirgi, Polimbi, and Mesta, all medieval villages with narrow streets, and maze like paths designed to keep pirates from easily reaching the center of the towns. The houses were built next to each other with the outside walls forming a defensive wall; each house is built of stone approximately 10’ wide, but several stories tall. Pirgi is a unique village with geometric patterns in black and grey covering the exteriors of the buildings. Upon close examination, I discovered the buildings are first coated with stucco, painted white, and then the designs are scratched into the surface by removing the white coating, leaving a grey contrast, really quite striking but looks like a lot of work. We drove through the town of Mesta which is the closest village to the Southern port of Chios, and continued driving along the coast and back inland towards the town of Chios’ over the never ending twisting, narrow mountain roads.
Chios has numerous excellent beaches so in the summer many tourists come to this island for the sun and fun, not just to drive over the mountain roads.
Greece has over 1,200 islands of which 227 are inhabited, 80% of Greece is mountains so the farming is difficult and done on the side of mountains by building terraces using the local, abundant field stones. Driving through the winding mountainous roads, it is hard to believe all the work necessary to build the miles of stone walls high up the sides of the mountains. Obviously the life of a farmer must have been full of back breaking, never ending work just to provide small parcels of land for crops.
In both Turkey and Greece the basic construction of dwellings is either stone mostly used in older structures, with concrete or brick used for newer buildings. The most common method today is to build the floors and structural columns using concrete, then infill the walls with brick, finally applying stucco and paint to finish the work. Beautiful varieties of stone are used for floors and for other decorative uses. Looking back into the past not a lot has changed over the centuries. The only difference is the gas powered cement mixers which are almost as common as sheep in the islands, it seems like everyone has at least one mixer, if not two. Another common structure is the defensive castle built on the top of a mountain or to protect the port; it is not an exaggeration to say they are more common than Starbucks coffee stores in the States! Every major town has at least one if not two, and any location of strategic importance has a huge stone structure built over the decades to protect whatever valuable piece of property was important to someone. It is hard to imagine the manpower, time and effort required to construct all of these castles. Now they are tourist attractions, some partially restored or in some cases used for museums.
One of the most interesting aspects of travel is the experience of eating different foods, so far we have not found any country better at producing bread and croissants than the French, the Italians have a wide variety of diverse and marvelous foods, British food (if you can call it that) is tasteless, without any imagination, and the Turkish seem to fall short in the really good food category. While similar to Greek food, the Turks seem to overcook everything so the vegetables are kind of mushy and all the food tastes rather bland. For breakfast, the hotels provide a nice buffet style spread with several varieties of olives (WHICH Barb will serve me every morning when we return!) cheeses, tomatoes, porridge, dry cereal, juice, hard boiled eggs, crepes, or scrambled eggs, and several varieties of bread, what appears to be sweet type breads, but they have no sugar flavor. In Izmir we found a large kettle of thin tomato soup base with Vienna sausages. More tea is served than coffee. Overall Turkish food is good but again very bland.
Greece offers an endless variety of cheese, lots of different meats and wonderful vegetables. Breakfast is similar with a variety of breads, cheeses, different kinds of olives, sliced meats, fruit and bread including toast and croissants, but of course they are a poor imitation of the French. We have tried to find a decent baguette in Greece but for some reason the majority of bread is in the form of hard pieces of toast made from baguettes and some other types of bread that might have been quite good at one time. My goal is to find out why the bread is intentionally designed to be impossible to eat. Easter is the big feast day in Greece with roast lamb on a spit, sweet bread, lots of ouzo and dancing, so maybe we will have an opportunity to experience really good food. Or, maybe the ouzo helps to improve the taste of food, we shall find out!
Right now, we are back in Lesvos, it was raining when we arrived so the one hour drive from Mytillini was slower than normal over the rain slicked, twisting, hairpin curve mountain roads. About 10:00 the baker from Vrissa arrives selling fresh bread from his truck, so I am waiting to hear music from his PA system so I can purchase fresh bread; he actually makes a nice loaf of bread, but it is not a French baguette; sigh.
I (Barb) purchased from Chios authentic worry beads….everyone has them…….love it…Be happy, don’t worry!!! :-)
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