Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
9
(olive sacks). On the usual, northerly approach, there's no hint of the enormous village
until you see huge knots of parked cars at the southern edge of town. Most visitors
proceed past endless ranks of kitsch wooden and ceramic souvenirs or carved
“Byzantine” furniture, aimed mostly at Greeks, and the central church of the
Panayía
Vrefokratoússa
- built in the twelfth century to house an icon supposedly painted by
the Evangelist Luke - to the old bazaar, with its
kafenía
, yoghurt/cheese shops and
butchers' stalls. With such a venerable icon as a focus, the local August 15
paniyíri
is
one of the liveliest on Lésvos.
Mount Ólymbos
From the southern side of Ayiássos, keen walkers can follow a network of marked paths
and tracks for three hours to the
Ólymbos
summit
. Approaching from Plomári, there's
asphalt road and public transport only up to Megalohóri, with a good dirt surface
thereafter up to some air-force radar balls, where paving resumes. The area between
Megalohóri and the summit ridge was damaged by a 1994 forest fire, though once over
the other side dense woods of unscathed oak and chestnut take over from the
recovering pine growth.
Mylélia water mill
Daily 9am-6pm •
W
mylelia.gr
Six kilometres northeast of Ayiássos, signposted along a track near the turning for Ípio,
you can visit the
Mylélia water mill
. The name means “place of the mills”, and there were
once several hereabouts - this is the last survivor, restored to working order in the 1990s.
The keeper will show you the millrace and paddle-wheel, as well as the flour making its
spasmodic exit, after which you can browse the gourmet pastas and other products at
the shop, including cheeses, jams, vinegar and salted fish. They also do cooking courses.
Polikhnítos and around
The largest settlement in the southwestern part of southern Lésvos is
POLIKHNÍTOS
, a
rather dull, workaday rural centre. It is, however, the point of access to magnificent
Vaterá
beach, the seaside villages of
Skála Polikhnítou
and and
Nifídha
, each with its
own smaller beach, and the Natural History Museum of
Vrýssa
.
Vrýssa: Natural History Museum
May & June daily 9.30am-3.30pm; July-Sept daily 9.30am-3pm & 4-8pm; Oct-April Wed-Sun 9.30am-3.30pm • €2 •
T
22520 61890
VRÝSSA
, 4km south of Polikhnítos, has a mildly diverting
Natural History Museum
documenting local paleontological finds. In 1997 Athenian paleontologist Michael
Dermitzakis confirmed what farmers unearthing bones had long suspected when he
pronounced the area a treasure-trove of
fossils
, including those of two-million-year-old
gigantic horses, mastodons, monkeys and tortoises the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. Until
20,000 years ago, Lésvos (like all other east Aegean islands) was joined to the Asian
mainland, and the gulf of Vaterá was a subtropical freshwater lake; the animals in question
came to drink, died nearby and were trapped and preserved by successive volcanic flows.
Vaterá and around
VATERÁ
, 9km south of Polikhnítos, is a 7km-long sand beach, backed by vegetated
hills; the sea here is delightfully calm and clean, the strand itself among the best on
POLIKHNÍTOS SPA
If you're after a hot bath, head for the vaulted, well-restored
Polikhnítos Spa
complex (daily:
April-Oct 9am-8pm; Nov-March 2-7pm; €4;
T
22520 41229,
W
hotsprings.gr) 1.5km east of
the town of
Polikhnítos
; there are separate, warm-hued chambers for each sex. The water
actually gushes out at temperatures up to 87˚C, so needs to be tempered with cold.
