As with our trip to Sozo­pol, Bul­ga­ria, I’m taking a quick moment out of a few days to recant our recent tails. Those lucky enough to find this rare and valua­ble hard copy will note the delight­ful Moly­vos image on the front of this book.

Rewin­ding to last Wed­nes­day, I left the office amidst a flurry of work for two weeks, lug­ging my suit­case behind. In West Ewell, after cros­sing Lon­don, we ate Sam’s risotto of “things left in the fridge”, I watched Man Utd ner­vously and luc­kily win the Cham­pions Lea­gue against Chel­sea whilst Sam hurriedly tried to remem­ber all the things she might for­get. Come 3:45am, the sere­nade of my phone alarm assaults us and throws us out of bed, diving into suit­ca­ses to tri­ple check our tic­kets and pass­ports. — before being whis­ked to Gat­wick by Sam’s mum for our 7:00am flight to Miti­lene, the Les­bos capi­tal, via First Choice air­li­nes. We boo­ked the holi­day and flights through First Choice two months in advance for £850, choo­sing to stay at the Sun Rise Hotel, next to Moly­vos, in North Lesbos.

I shall not get into our labo­rious pro­cess of deci­ding which island/resort to visit in Greece, but we deci­ded on Les­bos for its vege­ta­tion, size, rela­ti­vely ow tou­rism, direct flights and cul­ture. The Sun Rise Hotel was also highly rated on Trip Advi­sor (other can­di­da­tes were the Olive Press Hotel (too noisy), The Sea Horse (no pool) and a cou­ple of others (Petra, Ana­xos, too far from the beau­ti­ful Molyvos).

On lan­ding we dis­car­ded our jum­pers, breathed in the hot air and set about across the moun­tai­nous terrain of Les­bos, via taxi, to the north of the island — about an hours drive, at a speedy pace with horn hon­king at junc­tions and over­ta­king of one han­ded motorcyc­lists that were tex­ting on their pho­nes. We chec­ked in and pro­cee­ded up the 100-odd steps to our room, with a glo­rious North Les­vos sea view, and Tur­key clear in our sights over the water. The room is nice, exce­llent for slee­ping and loo­king after our clothes, which is all we need it for. The Sun Rise Hotel offers a full and half board food ser­vice, we got the break­fasts but opted out of the eve­ning meals — we like our res­tau­rants! A good choice con­si­de­ring their food is over pri­ced and not very good (we sam­pled a chic­ken a la creme, a tuna salad and a bur­ger on our first day — though not again since — Sam also made the Chic­ken Creme mis­take in Sozopol).

I’m currently sit­ting by their pool, bas­king in the hot sun, as I write this — it looks so refreshing and the sound of the water foun­tain is soothing. Every now and then a House Mar­tin swoops down to take a quick drink. Sam’s rea­ding her book “The Lolli­pop Shoes” and her sun burn has mostly gone down, though I am sure it will quickly return. I am rea­ding Mark Danielewski’s “House of Lea­ves”. We’ve pla­yed some table ten­nis but hand to eye co-ordination isn’t Sam’s strong point.

On our first day we ate our cheese, egg and tomato break­fast rolls, drunk the odd tas­ting tea and took the SRH cour­tesy bus down to Moly­vos. It’s a small coas­tal town built against a towe­ring rock with castle atop. The roads are thin, cob­bled up’n’down affairs, navi­ga­ted by the locals on their mopeds and bikes. The cen­tral streets are lined with small but cute tou­risty shops, res­tau­rants with bal­co­nies and expen­sive clothes shops — each of which Sam has tho­roughly explo­red. At the bot­tom lies the small port and all the highly rated pla­ces to eat, with their freshly caught wild fish. There are also cats — everywhere! We met two northern English cou­ples here fishing with a small line they had bought, using bread to catch small fish and octopi. 

Bet­ween 1pm and 5pm the heat is unbea­ra­ble and most shops shut for their siesta. We hea­ded back to the hotel on the 3pm cour­tesy bus (at 3:45, it doesn’t turn up unless you go into the BEST car rental/bar next to the stop and ask for the bus to come — the place is run by the same family). In wai­ting we met a lovely family that tip­ped us off about a nice little piz­ze­ria round the cor­ner from SRH, “Fan­tas­tico”. Esca­ping the con­fi­nes of our hotel foods we enjo­yed Pizza and into­xi­ca­ting house wines down towards Efta­lou Hotel at the afo­re­men­tio­ned. A nice cherry brandy on the house tip­ped Sam over the tipsy boat before we stag­ge­red home.

Satur­day tooks us on a 40 min walk towards Eftalou’s hot water springs via pebbly beaches, hot unsha­ded roads, pop­pies and lizards bas­king. Too sun burnt for the springs we dab­bled our feet in the cold sea and made games with the rocks.

After coo­ling down in the pool, now a com­mon prac­tice, we wal­ked into Moly­vos (20-40mins) for a meal at The Captain’s Table, a place run by English spea­king Melinda and family. We’d read that their Mezes and Fish were par­ti­cu­larly tasty and ever­yone has spo­ken very highly of them. Here I sam­pled the cloudy white Ouzo, spicy auber­gi­nes, Tabou­leh (a crac­ked wheat dish), sal­ted Ancho­vies (per­fect with Ouzo), sal­ted uncoo­ked sword­fish, “Grandma’s Cheese Pie”, gri­lled octo­pus, home-made chips and let­tuce salad ~€43. We plan to return for some fresh fish. We stop­ped for some cock­tails at Molly’s bar (another recom­men­ded place), drawn in by the awful sounds of the Euro­vi­sion song con­test. A black rus­sian, pina colada, straw­berry daqui­ris and weird green thing with ice cream later and the room was buz­zing with inter­na­tio­nal cheers and boos as songs pla­yed and the votes came in. Not the same without Wogan but the zea­lous laugh­ter and insults more than made up.

Ever­yone here on Les­bos is very open, tal­ka­tive and friendly. You can go and speak to anyone and they’ll be happy to engage with you. Everything is inc­re­dibly wel­co­ming — there’s ban­ter bet­ween tables at res­tau­rants and friendly chat­ter everywhere bet­ween stran­gers. It’s very easy to make friends and feel like part of something big­ger — whether its the Greek native or the holi­day atmosphere, this place brings out the best.

Need­less to say, we got home at 2am, tho­roughly sloshed. Sun­day became a tiring shop­ping trip with a quest for sun-block, hats and shoes. We ate at Betty’s for lunch, sha­ring a pork Klef­tiko with some giant white beans. Sam also dis­co­ve­red a taste for iced tea, I drank one of only four beers avai­la­ble on the island — Ams­tel. A char­ming place on the hill with over­loo­king balcony.

After a nap under a tree near the Olive Press, and a dip in the pool, it was back to Fan­tas­tico for a sha­red Pizza and cheap night out.

Mon­day brought the start of the local bus ser­vice from Efta­lou through to Ana­xos for only €1.40. With this we hea­ded to Petra, the beachy tou­rist trap — I hag­gled for a hat and Sam for some olive deco­ra­ted pot­tery. In the heat we clim­bed the cen­tral rock and the church at the top. After coming back down, we wal­ked through the back streets of the town, hea­ding back to the cen­tre via a beach-side walk, hila­riously ending with Sam’s shoes falling unce­re­mo­niously into the Sea right as we deci­ded to head back to the road. For lunch we had fresh bread, salami and cinam­mon dough­nuts. There’s not a lot to do in Petra, other than sun­bathe and shop for post cards, and maybe ride a pedalo. So we took the bus back to Moly­vos for the eve­ning — des­pite Sam’s desire to go to an obs­cure “Greek night” which offe­red a set meal, somewhere on the edge of Petra. 

Sam’s prin­ted res­tau­rant review pack took us in search of The Galley which was famed for its Mous­saka — inqui­ring at Molly’s it seems like it no lon­ger exists — so they recom­men­ded “Le Grand Bleu”. Here we went for stuf­fed Zucchini flo­wers and two por­tions of Mous­saka, with a litre of house wine as refresh­ment. We stum­bled hap­pily home. There’s a pecu­liar fee­ling to an out door res­tau­rant with a small road run­ning through it — with mopeds, cats and dogs alike.

Today is Tues­day, our day off by the pool, which star­ted with a sweaty stroll around the hill we sit atop of, with more pebbly beaches, hum­ming bird hawk moths, unfi­nished hou­ses, the odd lush villa and the hot hot sun. With Sam’s kiss it’s time to wrap this up for now — not a cloud above us.

***

It is Sun­day now and we are back by the pool in a much busier hotel. Tuesday’s plan was a roman­tic star­light cruise round the North West bay, on arri­val we found that, much to our disap­point­ment, although adver­ti­sed, it did not run “this early in the sea­son” — not enough peo­ple. At a loss we wan­de­red the har­bour watching schools of fish in the clear water beneath us. Into the har­bour cmae a small boat adver­ti­sing per­so­nal trips for a maxi­mum of 4 per­sons — run­ning to grap the cap­tain, Stra­dis, Sam found that he offe­red a 1–2 hour trip at €60. 

With a pros­pect of a night time boat ride the next night we hap­pily sett­led for our second meal at The Captain’s Table, loo­king for some fresh fish! On sho­wing our inte­rest, Melinda invi­ted us into the kitchen to peruse the fresh fish they had — taking them out of the ice box one by one explai­ning taste, type, bones and price. The Hate and Sea Bream took our fancy, and after Sam’s anxiety over bones, her’s came pre-filleted, both with head and tail still attached. Deli­cious! Next to us were a cou­ple from our hotel, with a lovely loo­king Cap­tains Plat­ter. We chat­ted over com­pli­men­tary Ouzo before having a lift home from our new friends.

Wed­nes­day brought an early start, at break­fast for 7:30, in taxi at 8:10, we hea­ded to Petra to begin the first of three walks as out­li­ned in “Walks in North Les­vos” by Lance Chil­ton. For something easy to begin with, we took the 30 — 45 min walk to Ana­xos around the coast, along Petra’s main road, round the water­line past sea­weed mounds, a moo­ring place and rocks to scram­ble over, we reached Ana­xos with rela­tive ease. On dis­co­very that Ana­xos is nothing more than a taverna/hotel filled tou­rist trap for sun worshi­pers, we opted for the second walk, round a dirt track in the hills to the sec­lu­ded beach of Ambe­lia, about an hours walk. The tem­pe­ra­ture was rising, but the route offe­red some shade and it was just bea­ra­ble for Sam. After some trou­ble fin­ding the start of the trail, our walk took us to a won­der­ful view of the beach and the high up village of Skou­ta­ros, then win­ding down across a small river and finally to the south end of the sandy beach. A sin­gle Taverna, “George’s” gave us our much nee­ded refresh­ment and toi­let stop. Here we found a river­bed filled with Terrapin’s which fought over chunks of our crusty bread.

We ate our salami and bread lunch in a sha­ded alcove at the end of the bay, thro­wing remains to the ever gra­te­ful fish. Our return route, the third walk, took us up and over the cliffs, the coas­tal path. Glo­rious views of cliffs cove­red in “Yellow ever­las­ting”, Pop­pies and clear blue sea’s below came at the cost of no shade and the odd thorny encoun­ter plus some beastly hor­nets, as well as pas­sing one man and his reluc­tant horse in tow. Taking this route in the height of the day did not prove to be the best idea, we mis­sed our bus and were left utterly parched and sun-roasted in the terri­ble Ana­xos. We were saved by a lady named Ali­son, poin­ting us towards a pool and some refresh­ments where we coo­led off for an hour or two, with count­less appli­ca­tions of mois­tu­ri­zer and sun lotion.

After the bus home, tired and hea­dached, we opted to post­pone the boat trip and hea­ded for the recom­men­ded Efta­lou Res­tau­rant. From our hotel to the res­tau­rant at the pebbly beach we were accom­pa­nied by a char­ming little dog. Amongst nume­rous cats and denied food requests (“we don’t have that — try this…”) we ate the fish of the day and a fresh tuna steak, with com­pli­men­tary Water­me­lon for des­sert. Whilst its hard to pin­point anything bad, we left very disap­poin­ted with the place. Perhaps it was the selec­tion of food on offer (Zucchini pie adver­ti­sed but not avai­la­ble) or the misun­ders­tan­ding over fish of the day not gilt hea­ded bream as it appea­red, but the unex­ci­ting Cod, who knows. Des­pite the medioc­rity we left with high spirits.

Thurs­day was another day spent by the pool, saying goodbye to friends we made in the week, pre­pa­ring for the ine­vi­ta­ble Thurs­day chan­geo­ver that takes back the Brits and brings in the fresh ones. Our hotel was get­ting ready for full capa­city, from 80 to 190 guests. It was sad to see ever­yone go, the cou­ples and the fami­lies, and we chat­ted in the sun by the pool until 4pm when their coach depar­ted, with pork Souv­la­kis from Fan­tas­tico in between.

With all the old English gone and the new not yet acquain­ted, Moly­vos was very quiet on Thurs­day night — as we hea­ded to the har­bour for our boat trip. Unfor­tu­na­tely, today the wind had pic­ked up to coin­cide with hot­ter tem­pe­ra­tu­res (33C), making the sea too choppy for a roman­tic night on a small boat for 2. With banana and water­me­lon ice creams we pon­de­red the cost, when a slightly lar­ger 10 per­son glass bot­to­med boat doc­ked. Through Sam’s sprint for the cap­tain and inqui­si­tive nature we bag­ged a dis­coun­ted €15 each trip around Petra and Rab­bit island with din­ner inc­lu­ding, ditching Stra­dis and his sma­ller boat — which we felt bad about but conc­lu­ded tha he would not have taken us out in the wind. The lar­ger boat cut through the waves much easier and the greek music pla­yed as our cap­tain Alex took us to a moo­ring place on Rab­bit island, via some under­wa­ter reefs vie­wed through the bot­tom. The thou­sands of nes­ting gulls on the island were not best plea­sed to see us as we hea­ded to the top they squaw­ked and began to dive at us, “WHOOSH” over my head, need­less to say we were out of there quickly, back on the boat for the pre­pa­red bar­be­cue. Our return took us via Petra, watching the red sun­set quickly des­cent into the haze of the horizon.

Back in Moly­vos, not quite sated, we hun­ted down Tro­pi­cana and “The Square”, higher up in the town, towards the har­bour, an area not yet explo­red. Des­pite its gene­ric name, Tro­pi­cana gave us a delight­ful greek salad with well pri­ced Mythos and ‘con­coc­ted from two drinks’ Orangeade. 

Fri­day became Car Ren­tal Day, we loo­ked at BEST, Avis and Hertz. Avis gave us the best deal, a yellow Hyun­dai Alto for €32 a day, with full insu­rance cove­red by First Choice, com­pa­red to €47 from BEST. I nail-bitingly aided Sam in her wrong-side of the road endea­vour, remin­ding that we are now dri­ving on the right and that the stee­ring wheel should be in the middle of the road.

After trying out the roads we knew, we bra­vely hea­ded through the win­ding, peri­lous moun­tain roads for Kalloni and Sakala Kalloni. Taking it slow and let­ting others over­take where we could, we made it to the bust­ling town, second lar­gest in Les­bos, Kalloni. A lot of the Greek chee­ri­ness appea­red to have esca­ped this busy, func­tio­ning locale. With a stroll, a stop at a fine hid­den bakery, super­mar­ket stop for some feta cheese and salami and get­ting lost in the sun and streets, we esca­ped south­wards for Skala Kallo­nis, mis­sing the turn and carr­ying along to a very quiet, sandy beach just before Para­kila. The only others there were locals, the para­sols were free and the taverna cheap. The Kalloni gulf is ridi­cu­lously salty, giving us an enjo­ya­ble extra buo­yancy in our sea side swim­ming. The sand fell away to a decent depth quickly, with the bonus of clear water for watching the large fish, crabs and her­mits that nest­led and nib­bled at our toes unafraid.

After 4 hours the school kids were out, splashing loudly they engul­fed the beach so we retur­ned back to the car and onwards to Skala Kallo­nis correctly this time. Upon par­king, a very Bri­tish club-going sort of fella that now lived on the island explai­ned and divul­ged the sec­ret won­ders of the moths and cater­pi­llars, as long swir­ling, squiggly things rai­ned on us from the trees above. The famed migra­tory birds had long gone, to my disap­point­ment. Rather than eating at Medusa which we finally found, amongst a fisher­man club­bing an octo­pus, we drove home before night­fall, with a small detour to Agia Paras­kevi in search of Apollo’s temple.

Sam’s fear of heights really kic­ked in on the return leg, we made safe but slow pro­gress. Con­gra­tu­la­ting Sam on a job well done, something she was clearly very ner­vous about doing, we retur­ned the car (I had a small scoo­ter trip), and had a full meal of Beef Gou­lash and Sti­fado at Tro­pi­cana, with their spe­cia­lity salad and feta stuf­fed pep­pers. Stuf­fed, happy and relie­ved, we slept soundly.

***

Satur­day brought another early mor­ning to this holi­day, the Wild West coach excus­rion around North West Les­vos, pic­kup at 8:15am. For €33 each we were to explore the area of Limo­nos, the village Vatoussa, the Petri­fied Forest and Skala Eres­sos. Another young cou­ple from our hotel were on the tour with us, they flew in on Thurs­day and we sha­red with them our tips. The large air con­di­tio­ned coach and cha­ris­ma­tic guide Ismini gree­ted us and we were off, through Petra and Ana­xos for more pic­kups, spee­dily along the tight moun­tain roads, win­ding around, horns blown at cor­ners, rip-roaring around the hair pins with the spo­ken his­to­ries of Petra and Ana­xos being explai­ned to us, down towards Skala Kallo­nis where we were yes­ter­day, for the last pic­kup. Then back up to Limo­nos Monas­tery, lar­gest of the island, with a father supe­rior and two monks.

The area is surroun­ded with small church like monu­ments, paid for by fami­lies as dedi­ca­tions to lost loved ones. The monas­tery is in a yard with with walled pro­tec­tion in the form of Monk’s cells and a small family of Pea­cocks. We opted out of the little Byzan­tine museum, ins­tead wan­de­ring the court-yards. An old ruling pre­vents women from ente­ring the monas­tery itself (“to stop temp­ta­tion”). so I went in alone — the walls, cei­lings and coves were all ela­bo­ra­tely deco­ra­ted, one depic­tion of a shark teethed indi­vi­dual being jes­ted by an angel sticks in my mind. No pic­tu­res allowed.

Lea­ving here, stic­king to our rigid time cons­traints, we tra­ve­lled to Vatoussa which exists within the cra­ter of a dor­mant vol­cano, via Filia and Ane­mo­tia, stop­ping for some local Bac­lava then whis­ked away again, before we could catch our breath, to the petri­fied forest. This lies past the high up, moun­tain perched Ipsi­lou monas­tery, over­loo­king the island — you can see Moly­vos in the dis­tance from here. The roads became more peri­lous, steep, unpro­tec­ted drops as the coach roars onwards as fast as pos­si­ble. The petri­fied forest, a collec­tion of fos­si­li­zed trees, is amongst the most barren of lands­ca­pes, almost moon like — the hot­test part of the tour at the hot­test time of the day. The lar­gest trees have been unco­ve­red, spar­sely popu­la­ting the park, pro­tec­ted with frail woo­den fen­ces, tou­rists are urged not to touch, but do so any­way. Sma­ller “tree-rocks” remain unearthed, frag­ments scat­te­red about the place, some even jut­ting out of dirt paths. Some shade, a coke and it’s back on the bus and down to Skala Eres­sos, birth­place of Sappho. On our tra­vels here we were lucky enough to see a Black Stork.

A 2 hour stop brought us some Mezes at the Aegean in the square; fried zucchini, auber­gine dip, fries and some feta — just right. By the time we were done, 4:30 had come and the coach was lea­ving once more, giving us no time to explore the church or the beach. Although a tou­rist resort it has more cha­rac­ter and fla­vour than Petra offers. Time to head home on a 2 hour round trip, expertly through Mes­so­to­pos, Agra, pas­sed the entrance to the bay and Para­kila, then up through the hills and Kalloni once more. Although inte­res­ting, the wea­ri­ness, dri­ving, cons­tant tur­ning, up and down and heat were inc­re­dibly nau­sea­ting. Whilst we did a lot, saw a lot and lear­ned a lot, it was not the most enjo­ya­ble of days given the sick­ness and time cons­traints. If you are a con­fi­dent dri­ves its pro­bably bet­ter to buy a guide and drive yourself. 

Home by 6:30pm and des­pite exhaus­tion, we went for the eve­ning to a small taverna, trian­gu­lar sha­ped at the cross roads bet­ween Moly­vos and Efta­lou, for their “Greek Night” with live music accom­pa­ni­ment. The loud music pla­yed and the menu appea­red pro­mi­sing — we made our choi­ces; stuf­fed pep­pers and lamb klef­tiko. They had neither, five ite­ra­tions later (no potato salad, meat­balls or stews) it appea­red they had none of the food on their menu. In the mean­time the music became pier­cingly loud, hea­dache indu­cing with cons­tant feed­back from the sin­ger, and those next to us lit up their cigs, smoke blo­wing in our faces. We should have left, but they had my last choice, a bur­ger, and we deci­ded to judge them on their food — a mis­take. After taking what felt like an eter­nity our food was cold, partly coo­ked and dis­gus­ting; a con­gea­led lamb sauce with no fla­vour, hard rice, soggy chips and all at an expen­sive price. Going against my prin­ci­ples we fed the wai­ting cats, they didn’t like it much either. As we were ser­ved our com­pli­men­tary desserts/drink we paid and left. DO NOT GO HERE. To reco­ver our eve­ning we had ice creams in the har­bour (mocha/chocolate! mmm), mee­ting an equally unhappy cou­ple in the pro­cess, with whom we pro­cee­ded to bitch. On the bus home we overheard others prai­sing the place; I can­not think how or why.

***

It is now Thurs­day after­noon and I have been torn from the lus­cious pool to return home to England, with a one hour coach trip across Les­bos to Miti­lene then a flight to Gat­wick, Lon­don. The flight crew are han­ding out headpho­nes for the in flight movie, “Natio­nal Trea­sure: Book of Sec­rets” whilst the islands pass away beneath us on the Aegean sea.

Sun­day was a desig­na­ted pool day — time to read our books, prac­tice our various swim­ming tech­ni­ques and gene­rally chi­llax. Tan­ned, but mostly red, after a late Hawaiian pizza from Fan­tas­tico, we wan­de­red down into Moly­vos for the eve­ning. Still rather sai­ted, we aim­lessly shop­ped, pon­de­red and con­si­de­red a meal — even sit­ting down at the harbour’s “Octo­pus” res­tau­rant, before lea­ving because we weren’t hungry. Our eve­ning was saved by the cou­ple from the tour, Mia and James.

Flag­ged down as we pas­sed them at “Cafe Pirate”, we ate with them at the cor­ner of Mar­ket Street, next to the butchers — orde­ring a selec­tion of Mezes (stuf­fed vine lea­ves, tuna crepe) and a large carafe of wine. After talk of jobs in Jamaica and Iraq, Baklava in Mon­treal and per­fectly made cof­fee, flash floods in Mont­pe­lier and some talk about our­sel­ves, we devou­red our com­pli­men­tary wal­nut baklava and stum­bled down to Molly’s for cock­tails above the har­bour. Tequila sun­ri­ses, Black Rus­sians, Alfas, etc. and so on — we left drunk enough to almost for­get bags, stag­ge­ring along cob­bled streets down to the taxi rank. “Your don­key doesn’t have enough shade”, we read aloud to the taxi dri­ver; a note left peg­ged to his fence. Back at the hotel, tomo­rrow was here, our heads were spin­ning and our beds enve­lo­ped us for what remai­ned of the night.

Sti­rring at 9:30am, just making Monday’s break­fast (cheese, scram­bled egg, tomato, bacon roll, gra­pe­fruit juice and now black tea because the milk tas­tes funny), we post­po­ned the plan­ned coas­tal walk — ins­tead we chose a han­go­ver reco­very pro­ce­dure, con­sis­ting of pain­ki­llers and sleep. Avoi­ding another day by the pool, it was time for Sam’s holi­day shop­ping spree in Loly­vos. But not before a cou­ple of lunch time Gyros from the little “Friends” takea­way and a swim in the noisy Olive Press hotel pool. Sip­ping mango juice on the pro­me­nade wall, house mar­tins on power lines above me, I left Samantha to gather olive oil and orna­ments; I ins­tead attemp­ted to catch fish using bread, salami and a small line I purcha­sed — unsuc­cess­fully I might add.

Not wan­ting to be disap­poin­ted by una­vai­la­ble menu items, din­ner at “The Octo­pus” came early — it’s the dis­tinc­tive buil­ding on the cor­ner in the har­bour with the red shut­ters on its win­dows; sit­ting down to a pretty table for two beneath the para­sols. AT LAST we found a place that offe­red AND had Zucchini pie, a deli­cious one to boot, with it we ate Tara­ma­sa­lata and crin­kle cut chips. For mains we sha­red fresh red mullet, cho­sen from inside at €50 per kg, con­su­ming five bet­ween us. Although Sam’s ongoing gut trou­bles / ill­ness meant she couldn’t enjoy these to the fullest. So much so we paid a visit to the phar­ma­cist on the way home, for advice and medicines.

* Looks like in-flight lunch is coming *

Pro­perly prep­ped with an early night, Tues­day brought us into the day fresh and alive enough to attempt the coas­tal walk to Skala Siki­mi­nea, home of the Mer­maid Madonna, via Efta­lou. We set out early to avoid the after­noon heats, con­fron­ting the blus­tery coas­tal winds at 9:00am. At the hot springs a kind dutch lady poin­ted us towards a dirt track, poin­ting out that the beach path would be impas­sa­ble because the tide was in.

As expec­ted, the road is long and win­ding, dip­ping in land for swoo­ping cor­ners, sli­ding up and down as the coas­tal terrain chan­ges — the walk is about 3 hours from Moly­vos, affor­ding the occa­sio­nal chance to get a clo­ser look at the flora and fauna, birds and the bees. Half­way along there is a small taverna for drinks — at which Sam unwi­sely deci­ded was the time to satisfy her English-Black tea fix; ins­tead she recei­ved an obs­cure Cinnamon/lemon and very weak con­coc­tion — “eugh”, I did warn her. We ended up sha­ring a bottle of coke.

Shortly the­reaf­ter, with some further up and downs, we reached the very small coas­tal village of Skala Siki­mi­nea. Three taver­nas (with parrot, lobs­ter tanks and kit­tens in trees), two tou­rist shops selling jewelry, a small har­bour and a church sit­ting on a small rocky outc­rop. This church is meant to con­tain a depic­tion of the Vir­gin Mary as a mer­maid — either it was hid­den away or not there, but we couldn’t find it. For lunch we had the mixed warm mezes from “The Cuc­koo Nest” which inc­lu­ded bou­re­ka­kia and tza­tziki.

By the after­noon it was too hot to walk back, and expen­sive for a taxi — our aim was to hitch a boat ride back to Moly­vos. Luc­kily for us, the cha­ris­ma­tic and wel­co­ming Cap­tain Alex came to the res­cue. By chance he was there to pick up a large group of Dutch tou­rists that had just hap­pe­ned to follow us on our walk; with space for two more on the boxes at the back of his glass bot­to­med boat, we hitched a ride for €10 each. Exce­llent. With Greek music pla­ying we bas­ked in the sun as we pas­sed the sights again, sha­ring almond bis­cuits cour­tesy of Alex. In Moly­vos we ate ice cream and wal­ked back to our pool.

The eve­ning brought us back to The Captain’s table, for house wine, spicy fried auber­gine, oli­ves and a Captain’s plat­ter for two. Although Sam ended up with white wine spilt down her dress (which led to a cour­tesy glass and free Cin­na­mon des­sert, on top of Ouzo and small jelly cubes). This was a beau­ti­ful eve­ning with a fabu­lous meal — the cala­mari was divine, which we ate with Mac­ke­rel, Bream, Sadd­led Bream and a fish that soun­ded like “melina”, as part of the plat­ter. Our unex­pec­ted des­sert was the best we had eaten all holi­day. Des­pite having one day left, this became our unof­fi­cial last roman­tic night in les­bos — we deci­ded we couldn’t top it. We caught the bus back to the Sun Rise Hotel after a short chat with “Gomez”, the wai­ter neat the bus stop; we said our goodb­yes and rode home to our room.

Wed­nes­day see­med like a spare day, we’d achie­ved most of what we wan­ted to do, time to mop up the loose ends as it were. Sam paid a trip to the hot hot Efta­lou springs with dips inters­per­sed with a coo­ling sea swim — I plo­wed through 100 pages of my book. A word of war­ning — avoid the eate­ries here, we were sub­ject to high pri­ces and arro­gant wai­ters, the food was equally horrid. To reset my pallet I swiftly purcha­sed some delight­ful home made Bac­lava from the Women’s agri­cul­tu­ral co-operative of Mithymna, and Fan­tas­tico pro­vi­ded another tasty tasty pork souv­laki — we just couldn’t get enough of them, they made a per­fect lunch time snack.

Without wishing to taint our last eve­ning, we chose a safe option on our last night — Lamb klef­tiko and beef sti­fado from Tro­pi­cana, this time with a rose wine at Sam’s request. The friendly neigh­bourhood diners sha­red with us their sto­ries of walks, sna­kes and visits to Petri. As our chairs wob­bled on the cob­bled floor, the debo­nair head wai­ter sha­red sto­ries and enga­ged with ever­yone and the cute black and white dog made its hun­ger rounds amidst all the cats, we pre­pa­red to say goodbye to Les­bos. Waving goodbye with some night time pho­to­graphy and squin­ting to see the flashing light emit­ted from Ipsi­lou, miles away to the West.

We’re just cros­sing the English Chan­nel now, and our ears are pop­ping with the des­cent, and it seems a just place to wrap this up. I haven’t spo­ken much of today, a bus ride, a meal at a Taverna in Miti­line, nothing special.

That’s it then. Goodbye Les­bos and all the won­der­ful peo­ple there. Gomez, the Fan­tas­tico men, Stra­dis, Alex, the break­fast wai­ters, friendly English tou­rists, Molly’s bar, the help­ful Avis man, Melinda and Co., the jes­ter like wai­ter at Tro­pi­cana, the cats, the dogs, the house mar­tins and bugs. The end.