Two weeks in Molyvos–Lesbos, Greece

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.