(Aristotle's Lagoon)
Nowadays
there are many more travellers than centuries ago. Thanks to the airplane you
do not need years to arrive at the other end of the world. It is because of
this fast transport that we can even consider having a holiday several times a
year. In fact going on vacation is not the same as travelling: you know to
which place you are going, along which road and how long it will take; while when
travelling you may not be sure which road you will take, nor how much time it
will take and you may only know your final destination.
Lesvos is a
vacation destination. Even in ancient times, when Rome ruled Europe, it already
was a vacation place for the Romans, who called the island The Garden of the
Aegean. Later on travellers thought Mytilini was the most beautiful city of the Aegean, but
until the middle of the nineteenth century most people preferred to travel to
the Greek mainland, to visit the classical monuments of ancient times, like the
Acropolis or Delphi. Lesvos was too far away and was only visited by a happy
few on their way to the Orient.
They missed
something, because Lesvos was the island chosen by Aristotle to study animals,
later published in his book Historia animalium. He was invited to do so by
Theophrastus, a scientist from Eresos, who is seen as the first botanist. The
former did the plants, the latter the animals. Aristotle chose the area around
the Gulf of Kalloni, where he could observe and dissect fish as well as land animals.
The BBC made an interesting documentary about the importance of Aristotle’s
study on Lesvos, Aristoteles’
Lagoon, a movie
that also serves as a strong advertisement for the island.
Most of
those early travellers were well read and wrote about their journeys, resulting
in entertaining literature which, above all, depicted life as it was so many
years ago. I am fascinated by these travel journals, especially those about
Lesvos, but there are so many! You would think that it was a requirement for every
traveller to write about his journey. In the Seventeenth century a Dutchman,
Gerard Hindelopen, made a report on his journey to Mytilini (see: The Throne of
Potamon). On the internet you can find plenty of travel journals from the
end of the Nineteenth to middle of the Twentieth century, like the one of J. Irving Manatt – Aegean
Days (1913) or Mary A. Walker – Old
tracks and new landmarks (1897), both describing their visit to Mitilene (as
the island used to be called).
Most people
stayed in Mytilini and from there travelled to other parts of the island. In
those times it was popular to visit the harbour of the Gulf of Yera, known as
the Olive Harbour.
Or they went to the other big harbour in those times, that of (Skala) Kallonis.
Those excursions, of course, were very arduous and by foot, horse chart, horse
or donkey, or by boat. Mary Walker for example hired a little boat to go to the
hot springs in Thermi and to Moria. Going to Molyvos she took the liner that
sailed between ‘Cavalla, Imbros, Tenedos, Molivos, Mitylene and Smyrna’. To
visit Petra she had to do it by foot from Molyvos, over a dangerous footpath
just destroyed by an earthquake.
Even in the
Sixties, when the first cars were introduced on the island, an excursion by car
to the monastery of Ypsilou was an adventurous enterprise that took more than a
day, according to Betty Roland who described this journey in her book Lesbos,
the pagan island.
The
islanders themselves did not like to travel, except for the merchants, who
mainly lived in Mytilini and travelled from there to faraway countries in the
Orient, as far as Russia and Egypt. The villagers remained in their familiar
surroundings: what should they do in the capital. But sometimes one had to go
to Mytilini for business, a journey often meaning adventure. In his book The Mermaid
Madonna the Lesviot writer Stratis Myrivilis told the story of a man from
Sykaminia who took his little fishingboat to Mytilini and returned totally drunk
and with a foundling in his boat.
By the
Sixties there was a bus between Molyvos, Petra and Mytilini, but that journey
took 2 to 3 hours and when it was rainy it might even take 4 to 5 hours,
because rivers had to be crossed. In the book Lesbos, the pagan island Betty Roland describes such a
journey, travelling along very bad roads with passengers behaving like they
were on a world trek with all their luggage and food.
Now all main
roads are tarmacadamed, bridges have been built and it takes only a little bit
more than an hour to drive from the North to Mytilini. Just a few tourists now
arrive by ship because a journey by airplane is much quicker. Nowadays people are
in a hurry; they want to see the sun and have forgotten that travelling will
show you beautiful sceneries and adventures.
Flying is
quick but it costs. I regularly hear complaints about expensive tickets for the
charter planes to the island – the quickest way – or that they are fully
booked. But there are many other ways to go to Lesvos, just like the travellers
did in earlier times, to arrive by boat on the island, a much more impressing
arrival than by plane. The easiest way is to fly to Athens and from there take
the ferry from Pireaus to Lesvos. But there is even a quicker and more
adventurous way: you take an early morning flight to Izmir in Turkey, from there
you take a shuttle bus to Ayvalik or Dikili (a drive along the beautiful Turkish
landscape of about 2 hours). Take some time to visit those scenic villages and then
take the boat to Mytilini at the end of the afternoon. This way you will even have
had your first excursion. This is the cheapest way and you can take beautiful
pictures while travelling. And – by the way – Izmir, too, is an interesting
city worth a visit, where you could easily stay one or more days.
Lesvos does
not belong to the most visited Greek islands. Therefore it is not yet spoiled
by mass tourism and what you see on the island is more or less what saw
Aristotle, the Romans and all those other travellers who praised the island as
a green and fertile garden in the Aegean: an oasis of quietness, nature,
friendly people and just a little bit of ancient culture.
(with
thanks to Mary Staples)
© Smitaki
2013
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