The Island of Lesvos

Lesvos, located in the North Aegean Sea is the third largest island in Greece and probably still more ‘authentic’ then the heavily visited tourist islands further south. After being here a little more than one week we are getting to know our way around, have met some of the locals and been somewhat accepted. This is a male dominated society although the women are certainly independent. In the tavernas which are really the local meeting place, it is almost always men who are there, while women are tolerated it is usually just the foreign women who will go in for something to eat or drink. The local taverna in Polichnitos has free wifi so a more diverse crowd including tourists spend time there. The only issue is the smoking which is illegal but still tolerated.

The hotel we are staying in on the beach in Vatera is very nice, but of course since we are early for the season, we are the only guests. The owners live in Mytillini most of the year but spend the summers managing the hotel, at other times during the year they have a travel and rent a car business. Yiannis Hahathakis, his brothers and parents all take part in running the hotel, plus they have other hotels on the island, and probably an olive grove somewhere. The parents live permanently in Vatera and are in the same building next to us. They have been out preparing the garden for summer; they supply the hotel kitchen with fresh vegetables, and she does much of the cooking. The brothers are good musicians who perform on the weekends for the guests, so this is quite a nice operation with about 40 rooms that are full in the summer with Northern Europeans and a scattering of people from all over the world. Many people return here each summer since it is a very nice beach and not overrun with tourists.

About 10:00 every morning we hear music as the baker from Varissa drives slowly down the street with fresh bread to sell. This morning the music was traditional Greek but then he stopped and changed it to early American rock and roll. On other days the fish monger drives through the streets selling fish from the back of his truck, no music but a loudspeaker announces his presence and presumably the goods he is selling. Since it is all Greek to us, we are never quite sure what people are saying or what we might be ordering. We have resorted to our pocket translator when we get desperate but for the most part we are able to buy what we need simply by pointing. The Greek language, and for that matter Turkish and Arabic are difficult since the alphabet and writing are different from the normal Latin alphabet. We were at the taverna yesterday trying to order something from the waiter who has a limited English vocabulary when he asked one of the other patrons to translate. The patron spoke excellent English and Greek so we were able to get what we wanted. It turns out the patron was from South Africa; he had migrated to Greece some seven years ago and is now a taxi driver in Polichnitos. Polichnitos is about 60 km from the main city of Mytillini and would be considered somewhat remote since it takes about one hour by car to travel over the mountains around the bay, through the woods and olive groves on twisting narrow roads. Polichnitos is the municipal capital of the area and even has a small hospital. At one time there were two brick factories and two china factories but now only one of the brick works is still operational. Tourism and sheep seem to be the main industries, with olive oil production still a part of the culture. Everywhere you look are the large clay pots used to store olives, and olive oil. Many of these pots are over 200 years old and were originally from Turkey. Now, most are used for decorative purposes, flower pots etc. These containers probably each held 30 gallons of olive oil being aged; the pots were buried in the basement to keep cool.