September 5 - Lesvos: the island of angels?

Archangel Michael (photo from internet)

Everybody knows the myth of Icarus: along with his father Daedelus he was kept on the island of Crete by King Minos. Daedelus developed a master plan to escape: he made a construction with wings of feathers and wax for his son to fly away. Icarus got one warning: do not go too close to the sun; it will melt your wings.

If anybody wants to know why Icarus was so enthusiastic about flying too close to the sun and thus crashing into the Aegean, read the book When We Have Wings by the Canadian writer Claire Corbett.

In the beginning I had some doubts about this book which is about a new society consisting of people some of whom can fly. The flyers are the rich people who can afford to have wings. I myself hate flying and even to look at a movie just like this one about an aeroplane flying over Lesvos, gives me the creeps. But this book did the opposite: I had the feeling that if scientists were to read this book, very soon we would no longer have to be pressed like cattle into an airplane; but we could reach our holiday destination like Lesvos with our own wings.

Reading this book gives you wings, gives you goose bumps on your back where your wings should grow. This story has been written so convincingly that even if you have a major fear of flying, you will wish you could be flying like the characters in When We Have Wings.

Maybe this little movie will give you an impression how it feels when you take off into the air. Just imagine flying all over the island.

I am sure that this way you could easily spot signs of ancient settlements. The earth looks quite different from above than from ground level. An archaeologist says she found huge pyramids hidden in the sand in Egypt with the aid of Google Earth. The archaeologists who found traces of an pre-aeolian civilization in Kourtir (Skamnioudi) did not have the help of Google Earth, nor did the ones who excavated in Chalakies (between Skala Polichnitos and Nyfida), discovering traces of an even elder settlement from the copper or Neolithic era. Right now a group of international archaeologists is digging and discovering the remnants of a civilization possibly from 200,000 years ago! Even older than that of the Neanderthals. I wonder how these ancient people lived and if they, like Icarus, ever tried to fly.

In those times it was only the gods who could fly. Or could there have then still been flying mammals, like big flying dinosaurs? In the region around Lisvori and Vatera they found the remains of huge prehistoric animals like mastodons, camels, oxen, a tortoise as big as a car and the bones of a huge ape family. Around Gavathas they found the bones of a dinosaur.

The only dinosaurs who have survived are the birds, the giant albatross being the biggest, with an average wing span of 3 metres, a dwarf compared to the huge dinosaurs, of which the sauropode Amphicoelias could be 60 metres long.

Claire Corbett took the birds as an inspiration to describe flying people in a realistic way. And she created a sparkling architecture for the world of her flyers: a city with high towering buildings, steep abysses and even floating districts. She describes fabulous things like coloured waterfalls, transparent walls and paths which seem to go through space: a real joy for the fantasy lovers.

However, the real flyers in her story - the ones who do not fly because of being part of the happy few, but because they really love to fly - don’t float around those magic buildings, but prefer natural settings, of which there are plenty on Lesvos: a beach, a bright blue sea and rocks to take off. The one difference is that the Greek summers are pretty cloudless. The real flyers are studying birds and insect and cloud formations and aerodynamics in the sky.

Seeing people with wings makes you think of angels. Flying creatures are known on Lesvos; an example being the legend of archangel Michael, whose miracle icon in the monastery of Mandamados attracts thousands of pilgrims yearly. The story goes that archangel Michael with his wings and sword chased away the Turks – another story says pirates - who were raiding the Taxiarchis monastery, thus saving one monk. This man was so grateful to his rescuer he took the earth coloured with blood and created an image of the head of the archangel, later decorated with beautiful silver wings. Taxiarchis, the Greek name of the archangel Michael, is also the patron saint of Lesvos.

Robert Betz, the German guru who has settled on the island believes that Lesvos is an island of angels. Not only can you find plenty of images of angels for sale in his online shop, in seminars he also has the angels talk.

That’s why in the souvenirs shops of Lesvos now you’ll find plenty of angels along with the icons with archangels, made by artists taking advantage of this Betz-angel-trend. Claire Corbett however writes about human angels, not created with miracles as it is pure science that makes the flying possible. The flying people with their lustrous wings may look like angels from heaven, but the story is really human: about being a parent, about social justice and of course about love and betrayal.

I have no idea about which angels Robert Betz is talking. His angel-students are just like Corbett’s elitist flyers — a little arrogant, moving around like they are the only people on the island. I would say that they do not behave like angels, more like Icarus, whose haughtiness collapsed when his waxen wings melted.

I prefer the birdwatchers, studying the last flying dinosaurs, or the angel icons set in gold and silver, who may shed a tear once in a while but keep on attracting pilgrims without a fuss.


(with thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2012

Dreaming during a heat wave

A colourful street in Agiasos

What are you supposed to do during a heat wave? You’d best stay inside if you don’t have to go out and the beach is too hot. And so it can happen that you find yourself spending long hours in front of your overheated computer, looking at funny things like The 7 longest streets of the world, or The shortest street.

I don’t think that any street from Lesvos will enter this category, nor does it have a restaurant that could compete with The weirdest restaurants of the world. Although you could easily place a table and two chairs in the hollow tree of Karina, or possibly in the one of Liota, thus creating a VIP-room for The Hollow Tree Restaurant (and I guess that it would be a wonderfully cool space).

There are also very strange hotels: in trees or in elephants, made from ice or sand, under water or in the air and many more choices. Lesvos also has some nice hotels, but not like the one in Kenya where the giraffes stick their heads through the windows at breakfast in order to get some bread. But Lesvos still has many donkeys and I am sure these stubborn animals could also learn to stick their heads through a window if it meant that they could get a croissant. So we could create a Donkey Hotel, where the donkeys not only ask for food, but would help out carrying suitcases, help the maids with the hotel linen or even do some gardening. Children could be taking care of them in the afternoon, thus winning a donkey ride around the swimming pool. There would even be a service to rent a donkey instead of a taxi to bring you to the village or the beach.

And then again I mention the idea of a hotel made of salt. One of the rare ones is built in Bolivia: Palacio de Sal. The salt pans of Skala Polichnitos would be ideal for such a project. You could stay in a very original hotel and have a superb view over the sometimes spectacular pink coloured salt pans where flamingos hop around and where other special birds have their habitat. It would be the dream of a bird watcher!

There is also an interesting list of abandoned islands, pieces of land in the sea where once people had great dreams, but where you now only find houses and buildings slowly uniting with nature.
Spinalonga, an island off the coast of Crete, once housing a leper colony and now a major tourist attraction, is not on the list, but it should be there. I could not find a list of islands that were abandoned by tourists. I mean, I don’t need that list for Lesvos, because there still are tourists around; but there are some days that you wonder if the island has been nearly abandoned.

Speaking about islands: there is also the possibility to rent an island and bring it to the place you prefer, see this floating island. Although I wonder what’s the difference between this floating island and a luxurious yacht. You might as well place a tree house, like those built by the company Bauraum - on a huge raft, plant it with flowers and trees and then you could rent it out to whoever wants to have a week on a private island in his favourite spot.

This way you could be king of your own kingdom and you might even figure on the list of micronations of the world. The newest nation figuring on this list is Filettino, a village in Italy whose mayor proclaimed the village independent in 2011, because they don’t agree with the severe economics dictated by Europe. Is this an idea for The Republic of Lesvos?

And then there is a list of most colourful cities of the world. And again no Lesvos on this list, although this island certainly has some very colourful places, like Agiasos, where they have a few such brightly coloured houses (on the way to the sanatorium) that sunglasses are needed to look at them. And there is a very bright and dark pink house along the Bay of Kalloni, going to Nifida, which has such a colour that it brings tears to your eyes, and Asomatos has a building painted in a colour that even from far away hurts your eyes. And if those villages do not compete with the existing list, we will charter the Dutch artists Haas & Hahn to transform a village like Argenos into an explosion of colours. These artists have been working in the favela’s of Rio de Janiero in Brazil, turning part of slums into bright colourful objects, hoping to brighten up not only buildings but also the inhabitants. For the same reasons they now work in a poor part of the American city of Philadelphia. If the Greek crisis carries on much longer, Lesvos also will be ready for a colourful and social refurbishment of this creative duo.

(Thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2012

Tour de Lesvos

The poster for the Greek Brevets

The newest form of transport in Greece is the bicycle! Although I have to admit that the bicycle is not the most suitable transport for this country, and certainly not for mountainous Lesvos. A donkey or a car seem more suitable to me for the along the meandering mountain roads. However cycling is gaining more and more popularity.

The very first bicycle was a kind of wooden walking bike, without pedals; this vélocipède was built in 1817 by the German baron Karl Drais. In 1865 a French father and son constructed an improved version: their vélocipède had an iron frame, iron wheels and pedals. Three years later a bike with a chain drive appeared on the market and when, twenty years later, rubber bands were wrapped around the wheels we had arrived at the bicycle that we ride these days. Now, a century later, our modern e-times bring another novelty: the e-bike or the electric bicycle, a bike with a small electric engine that you can use when you have to climb up a steep hill. In other words, an ideal bike for this island.

Real cyclists will not agree: their sport is to climb those mountains on two wheels without any electric help, exemplified by the Tour the France where several mountaintops form the highlight of this most popular race.

So cycling in Greece, a country full of mountains and valleys, is not such a bad idea and these days you see more than one cycling club appearing. Maybe serious cycling in Greece started in 2008, when a Costas Simelidis (The man who brought the bicycle to Greece) founded the group Bicycle Respect and made sure that, especially around Thessaloniki, cyclists were no longer a curiosity on the roads. Greeks were never too keen on bicycles: they thought the two-wheelers a danger on the roads and something for poor people who could not afford another road transport. Now bicycles appear more and more on the roads and Greeks will realize that cycling has become fashion.

In the past you occasionally saw some lonely cyclists labouring through the Lesvorian landscape, their luggage piled high on their frames: typical tourists who, for idealistic reasons, preferred the iron horse above a rental car. Now you more often see cyclists dressed in colourful and streamlined clothes bursting around bends on their racing bikes and more and more bicycles are rented to tourists, especially in the region of Kalloni where the absence of hills or mountains makes it an ideal area to bike.

Because of the crisis more than one Greek would now prefer a bicycle, because it’s a cheap form of transport. But cycling nowadays also means that you care about the environment and in cities where polluting cars are the leading transport, bicycles can provide a solution to the traffic jams.

To get the Greeks acquainted with the new status of the bicycle, more and more cyclists’ days are organized in the big cities. On May 13th in Mytilini hundreds of cyclists meandered through the city and their large number gave the impression that each Lesviot must own a bike.

The tour which is organized on Lesvos for this coming Monday July 9th will probably not have that many participants because the trail will go over most of the island: Brevet Lesvos 2012 is part of a series of brevet tours that are organized through the whole of Greece. On Saturday July 7th is the Brevet Chios and on this neighbouring island the trail will also cover most of the island. Let’s hope that the participants on Chios will reach in time Lesvos, to take up the next challenge on July 9th: 217 and a half kilometres, with plenty of ‘cols’ (mountain tops).

The Lesvos Tour will depart on Monday morning at 08.00 from Molyvos and go through Vafios, Argenos and Mandamados to Mytilini, from there it goes along the Gulf of Yera to Plomari, and along the beautiful road to Melinda – Ambeliko – Kalloni, and then back over the mountains to Molyvos. Only the bare mountains of the west will be skipped. The tour is organized by PEPA (Greek veteran bikers club) and according to the rules of l’Audax Parisien zullen strikt worden gehanteerd.

I presume that all other road users will be prepared for meeting the platoon of cyclists (amongst them some professionals) and that the donkeys who are used to taking their siesta in the middle of the road will change their pattern. The roads of Lesvos are for everybody including those quadrupeds and now also the two-wheelers.

I wish the organisation and the participants success and I hope that this event will grow into an international cycling event. The amateur cyclists who are fed up with the Belgium Ardennes and the French roads will find a super alternative by cycling through Greece, full of astonishing nature, superb views and challenging mountain tops.

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2012

Lesvos: a hornets’ nest!

A fertilizing Andrena on an Ophrys mammosa

When somebody calls Lesvos a hornets’ nest that doesn’t mean that it’s dangerous to go there. During the last few months I have been reading in the Dutch press that Greece has become unsafe, a place best not to take holidays. Then I look around and think: what bullshit! Greece is not the only European country where strikes can disturb travelling! And the demonstrations mostly take place in the big cities; through which, in most cases, you do not have to travel when coming to Greece by plane.

On the islands life goes on as usual, crisis or not. Well — let’s say — almost. Even though the weather has rewarded the spring with summer temperatures, some hotels have been forced to open later because of decreasing bookings. And some may not open at all.

The faithful visitors to Greece know better and are not disturbed by any European slander. They know the country and how beautiful this region of Europe is and how wonderful its climate is. Lots of birdwatchers have arrived with their huge binoculars and cameras to admire the migrating birds who make stopovers on Lesvos; lots of tourists drive around to enjoy the flower garden into which Lesvos – every year – is changed during spring.

It is becoming a tradition that those pictures of the bright red poppy fields near Achladerie appear on Facebook, while the fields of red tulips near Vatera remain a secret place for only a happy few. Yesterday we met no tourists while meandering through the mountains above Parakila, where lots of sandy roads wind through the fresh scented pine forests and alongside huge impressive rocks. Nor were there people on the top of the mountain Profetis Ilias (between Parakila and Pterounda), the third highest and most idyllic lookout spot of the island. It is here that I think once apon a time a bird dropped a seed of the yellow Rhodondendron (yellow Azelea actually) so that now we can enjoy those sweet-scented massive waterfalls of flowers, tumbling down through the dark forests.

On the steep mountainsides, densely overgrown with pine trees, we watched another natural event: all those thousands – or even millions – of pine trees were flowering and those little floral clusters producing pollen. Each time a gust of wind touched the tree tops, a cloud of pollen flew out of the tree, floating to the mountaintops. I first thought that some idiot was having a fire in the middle of the woods, but each plume of smoke came from a different location and then I realized that it was the trees giving elegant smoke signals. Within weeks this yellow powder will be settled on the dusty roads and probably some tourists will wonder which stupid person has been scattering insecticide, because that’s what the pollen look like.

Some tourists come to Lesvos to look for orchids. These are two unique worlds, that of the flowers as well as that of the orchid hunters, the name I give these people. Some contain themselves to one island or a one country, others will visit as many regions as possible where these flowers grow. They are guided by the stories of other orchid hunters who share where they found what orchids. It can happen that around Agiasos – the region of Lesvos where most orchids are thought to be found – a queue of people will jog along the roadsides to look for one rare orchid. Well, those groups will keep a certain distance because when an orchid is found, it becomes a very private victory.

Orchid country is a very exciting place because new varieties are still developing. Orchids are divided in different species, which are further divided into subspecies. It is mainly the subspecies of Ophrys that keeps on producing new kinds. This is how it works: the flowers of the Ophrys look like (and have the scent of) female insects and so they try to attract the male insects who – by transferring pollen from one flower to another – fertilize the orchid. As each insect is looking for its own kind ,so each orchid specializes in attracting a specific insect (mostly bees or wasps). But it can happen that an insect by accident or laziness settles on the wrong orchid, fertilizes it and then strange babys can be born: hybrids or new subspecies.

There are orchid hunters who do not approve of all those newly named subspecies and who keep on calling the orchids by their official species’ name. And there are orchid hunters who so badly want to collect all the orchids of one region that they not only tell where one orchid is to be found but also pretend to know which species is ‘not’ growing in certain places. And so in orchid land they keep on squabbling.

Dutch photographer Jan van Lent has fallen in love with the orchids of Lesvos and has been studying the world of the orchid hunters. And here we come back to the hornets’ nest: his blog is called: The orchid paradise: Lesvos, a hornet’s nest! (http://www.janvanlent.com/blog/?page_id=519) The title refers to the orchid hunters who all have different opinions and all use different names. But first his blogs tell about his, sometimes demanding searches and exciting finds on the island, all illustrated with excellent photographs.

So Lesvos is not a hornets’ nest but a small paradise, full of different worlds with birds, insects and plants, breathtaking landscapes, a bright blue sea and traditional villages. No crisis can change that.

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2012

Market revolution

(Vatoussa)

Some days ago Bruno Tersago, a Belgium blogger living in Piraeus, wrote about the Potato Movement (only in Dutch). It was about farmers who could not sell their potatoes because they were said to be polluted. The farmers took their potatoes to Athens and distributed them for free. Farmers from another part of Greece were having the same problem and also took their potatoes to the capital. They sold them for cost. Many people welcomed this opportunity for cheaper produce because normally most brokers triple the prices.

It seems a new revolution: farmers coming to the cities to sell their own products. Which is what usually is done at a markets. However, a market stall will cost you and not everybody has money lying ready in their kitchen drawer.

I remember visiting markets in Chania (Crete) and in Athens and I am sure there must be others in Greece. But on Lesvos, the third biggest island of Greece, there are none. Why? It might be because most of the people here have their own little gardens where they grow their own vegetables, whilst one of their neighbours will have sheep and goats and most families on the island have olive trees for their daily consummation of olive oil.

It is also said that the shopkeepers oppose a farmer’s market: they are afraid of loss of income. Like the shopkeepers of Kalloni are opposing a bypass because they fear than no-one will come into their city for shopping. Meanwhile, most travellers to the north frequently get stuck in traffic jams in Kalloni.

All those shopkeepers should be sent abroad to take a look at foreign markets. In the South of France, the local markets, where you’ll find the most delicious local products, attract lots of people who also go into the local shops because not everything is available on the market stalls.

Here on Lesvos you could say that we have a mobile market. A few vegetable growers sell their products from their pick-ups. There are also some men selling fish from their cars. And there are gypsies and Chinese people travelling around selling chairs, clothes, knifes, tools, poultry and so on. They are like the peddlers of the Middle Ages. When you see those poultry vans, you believe yourself to be in another time. The poultry is kept in tiny cages and should be forbidden, especially in the soaring summer heat, when it’s pure animal cruelty.

Those other driving ‘marketcars’ are okay, but where are they when you need them. Years ago I went hunting for the mobile fish seller, but after chasing him with blazing horn for ages and to no-result, it’s no longer fun.

And then there are the tourists who ask frequently where the island markets are. The Dutch love to visit markets abroad to see all the local products. You can send them to the cooperative shops, but they don’t carry all products, especially no fresh vegetables.

Here in Molyvos they tried to organise a market, without any result. Last week I discussed this phenomenon with friends who work in the tourist industry and they told me that one of the most popular excursions on Las Palmas (Gran Canarian) is the one to a faraway local market.

So that’s it: don’t plan a market too close — but faraway! Lafionas for example is a picturesque village above Petra, where you could organize a market. You could make it into an attractive excursion where tourists, once up in the village, can also take the Alexander walk, an easy walk around a mountaintop with splendid views over the region.

If the sub-municipality of Petra doesn’t approve of a market in Lafionas then you make a market in Vatoussa, one of the most beautiful villages of the island, and which has a large parking lot. Or in Andissa, where they say that they have the most beautiful square. They wouldn’t object to having the most cozy market of the island. Because a market brings lots of life and where there’s life, there’s business.

Yesterday in Skamnioudi I tasted a one-day-old feta, and I nearly ate a kilo, it was that delicious. I get honey in Karini, but I am sure you also can find the same good quality elsewhere on the island. Lisvori makes a very special bread, like the bread from the wood stove in Megalochori which also is famous. The region around Mandamados is famous for its cheese, Agios Dimitrios (close to Agiasos) is known for its in sugar preserved vegetables and fruit (gliko toe koetalio) and the womens’ cooperative of Anamotia makes delicious cakes. It will take you days to buy all your favourite products here on the island.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have all those different cheeses from the island gathered in one market, along with all the different products of the many womens’ cooperatives, or to see all the honeys on a row, or all the olive oils, all the wines, all the horta and so on . . .

During the Ottoman Empire Greeks were known as being smart and good business people. Where did that business spirit go? Huge national and international enterprises have made Greece poor. So change the laws and the bureaucratic systems so that small entrepreneurs can build up Greece again with honest commerce and old-fashioned mercantilism.

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2012

Light Towers

(The lighthouse of Molyvos)

For centuries pirates terrorized the Aegean. And it wasn’t just the sea that was not safe; these sea faring thieves regularly raided the islands. That’s why on Chios the mastic villages like Pyrgi, Mesta and Olympi were built as real forts with thick walls all around. And just like on Lesvos, they were not built at the seaside, but hidden inland so that they were not easy prey for the pirates.

On the east side of Lesvos, just outside of Mytilini, tower houses, or pyrgelia were built, where goods and cattle could be stored and families could have a safe haven there. Originally they were built as watchtowers. With a broad view over the sea they could warn the villagers when foreign ships came into sight.

By the Seventeenth century these pyrgelia became en vogue as houses: with a windowless first floor, but a large entrance that could be securely closed (some houses even had secret hiding places for the women and girls, in order to save them from a pirate raid) and an upper floor which served as the living space where the light flowed in through windows and with a characteristic wooden extension.

Those towers were not built everywhere. Elsewhere they lit fires on the mountaintops along the coast, as a warning of approaching pirates.
Maybe this old warning system can be considered as the precursor of the lighthouse.

One of the eldest and best-known lighthouses from history is the Pharos of Alexandria, built between 297 and 283 BC by Ptlomeus I Soter on the island of Pharos just in front of Alexandria. The town was conquered by Alexander the Great and Ptolemeus was one of his generals. When Alexander died, Ptolemeus proclaimed himself King of Egypt and started building the lighthouse, which became one of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World. It is said that the tower was 120 – 140 metres tall and that its light could be seen from 50 kilometres away! This was, for ancient times, an unusually tall building; however, it wasn’t resistant to the earthquakes of 926, 1303 and 1323 and after a Sixteenth century Egyptian Sultan built his palace on top of the remains of the tower, nothing is left to be seen of this legendary Greek tower.

Even elder is the Maiden or Leander Tower that can still be visited close to Istanbul, on a small island in the Bosporus. This one was built around 408 BC by an Athenian general. He built it as a watchtower in order to keep a close eye on the movements of the Persian fleet. The Maiden Tower was rebuilt several times and for centuries it served as a lighthouse. Today it’s a restaurant.

There is an ancient Greek myth about this tower: the story of Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite who lived in a tower in Sestos, a little town on the Turkish peninsula of Gallipoli at the entrance of the Dardanelles. At the other side lived the boy Leander who fell in love with Hero and he swum across to her each night. Hero lit a candle so that he could find his way. Leander convinced Hero that she could lose her virginity without insulting Aphrodite; so they made love for a whole summer. Until one day when a big storm blew out Hero’s candle and Leander got lost at sea and drowned. Hero was so distraught that she threw herself from the tower.

Because the Dardanelles and the Bosporus are so close and similar, the ancient Greeks and Byzantines believed that the Maiden Tower was in fact the Leander Tower.

The Turks have another story. It’s about the daughter of a sultan and an oracle had predicted that she would die on her eighteenth birthday from a snakebite. Her father built a tower in the middle of the Bosporus, so that she was far away from the land and the snakes. On her eighteenth birthday, glad that the prediction could not happen, he sent her a huge basket with all kinds of exotic fruits. But amidst the fruit was hidden a viper and, of course, the prediction did come true.

Lighthouses were not built as watchtowers for pirates. In some cases they may even have been extinguished in order that the pirates and their ships would be smashed against the rocks and perish.

There was no need for the ‘lighthouses’ on Lesvos to be put out, because they were not as old and legendary as the lighthouses of Alexandria and Istanbul. The oldest tower is from 1947 and is on the islet Megalonisi (Nissiopi), outside the harbour of Sigri. In fact, it is the replacement of an old iron lighthouse of 19 metres, built in 1861 by a French company, during the Ottoman occupation and destroyed in the Second World War. On the cape (Akra) Korakas, close to Skala Sykaminia, there was a similar tower also built by the French (in 1863). Nowadays you can only see the house of the lighthouse keeper. The sea is now made secure by a modern kind of lighthouse, similar to the one that stands guard on the Cape of Molyvos. The five metre tall lighthouse of Agrelios, at the mouth of the Gulf of Gera, was built in 1930 and has more or less survived history. Mytilini even has two remaining lighthouses: the Fykiotrypa, just in front of the castle, where there once was another tower from 1863 and there is also one in the harbour of Mytilini.

During the Second World War most lighthouses in Greece were destroyed. Before the war there were 206 and after the war only 19 remained. During the Fifties they started to rebuild some of them, others were left to perish or replaced by light beacons. It is only on the island of Ios that a lighthouse has been turned into a museum. Nowadays there are 120 traditional lighthouses in Greece and one of them is the one in Sigri. One hopes that with the forthcoming opening of the Nissiopi to the public, the lighthouse will also attract visitors. And I can imagine that when the tourists tire of viewing all those petrified trees, they will be in need for a drink. So why not turn the lighthouse into a tavern? Finally the Leander Tower has turned into a famous restaurant.

(With thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2012

Island for rent!

(The salt pans of Skala Polichnitos)

A lot of Greeks were angry after a member of the Parliament, Gerasimos Giakoumatos, suggested that in order to earn some money Greece should rent out his archaeological sites like the Acropolis. It is not such a bad idea when you think about it. Renting is not selling and when such a renter is a private society, the tourist would not risk that often to get confronted with a closed Acropolis, due to strikes of the government workers.

The icon of France, the Eiffel tower, for example is also exploited by a society (SETE: Société de la exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, so why they can do it in France and not in Greece? Do not think that in such a way all people can rent the Acropolis as a fabulous location for a birthday party. SETE for example has as goal that the Eiffel Tower should remain the number one attraction of Paris. Which means a lot of work. They not only maintain the tower and its site, they make sure that they have a good service for the tourists and whenever needed they renew or modernise the site for keeping the Eiffel tower a modern attraction so that Paris can keep counting on it as a major income. To keep the Eiffel Tower attractive they cooperate or organise themselves regularly exhibitions, concerts, festivals and other events.

When you see their costs and earnings in 2009 it is clear that everybody gets better from it: income: 65,7 millions euro; costs: 62,4 million euro, included 8,5 million euro to the city of Paris and 1,3 million euro for taxes to the state. Why is this such a bad idea for the Acropolis?

Imagine that such a society can rent the castle of Molyvos. A clever entrepreneur could besides the regular visits to the castle organise events in the evenings, something that the municipality of Lesvos could nearly afford last summer and I am sure next summer it will be even worse. The castle of Molyvos is a wonderful place for concerts, dance events and other cultural activities.

They could organise spectacular performances, like there used to be those surprising concerts of the French group Urban Sax, who may show up with as many as 200 saxophonists. They can play from all corners of the castle, even play their saxophones hanging on cables from the walls of the castle. They could even have the concert taken place partly in the harbour of Molyvos. Even a concert of the famous Dutch violist Andre Rieu, high above the medieval village of Molyvos could attract thousands of people.

This society can even enlarge his renting area. The SETE is also part of a much bigger company (Snelac) that runs tens of attraction parks like the French Disneyland in France. I do not suggest that Lesvos also should get a Disneyland, but when you use your fantasy you could bring a little bit more activity to the island in order to get more tourists.

They should not only rent the castle of Molyvos, but also the aqueduct of Moria where they could organise picnic-concerts or light shows.

They could rent Old Antissa, restore the ruins, make it a serious archaeological site and include a theme park like Jurassic Park. It is in that region (near Gavathas) that the bones were found from prehistoric animals.

They could rent the saltpans of Skala Polichnitos, open a salt museum and build besides a salt hotel with rooms of salt. When in Kemi (Finland) they can build a hotel out of snow, you should be able to do the same with salt.


They should rent waterfalls and caves and make them accessible to a bigger public. In the caves you can make exciting labyrinths and waterfall sites can be used for bungee jumping.

They should rent the Ypsilo monastery and turn it into a star watching hotel, with a huge stargazer and rooms with glass roofs so that you can fall asleep watching the stars.

They should rent Agiasos and turn it into an openair museum and course centre, having the inhabitants wearing the old costumes, give lessons not only in old handicrafts like wood carving and pottery but also in modern theatre (Agiasos is known for its theatre plays).

They should rent Plomari, restore all those tall buildings and make there a shipping museum. In ancient times Plomari used to live from building ships.

They should rent Mandamados and call it the cheese centre of the island, organising a weekly cheese market and making the cheese factories public. I mean, the Dutch cheese city of Alkmaar is a daily attraction for hundreds of visitors.

They should rent Kalloni and have it transformed into a real Dutch village. This is also very attractive; look at the Orange Country Resort in Antalya, Turkey or to Huis ten Bosch in Japan.

Well, this last suggestion is maybe a little over the top, but imagine that somebody would realise all these proposals. I would not really like Lesvos turned into one huge amusement Park. But the idea to rent out some archaeological sites to private societies is no bad idea. It will not only bring money for the municipalities, it will bring more jobs and tourists.

An example to keep on renewing can be found at the Natural History Museum of the Petrified Forest in Sigri. They decided that the island Nissiopi, in front of the harbour of Sigri and full of petrified trees, should be open to public. Next season they will have a glassbottom boat bringing the tourists there. And so you see, one of the tiniest villages of the island, so remote and yet so progressive.

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2012

Let’s get the olives done

(Harvesting the olives: for old and young people)

Everybody on the island is busy picking the olives from the trees. This year the harvest has not been abundant because there was such little rain (and because of that not too many insects to spoil the fruit so the harvest is of good quality).

Each year I help friends with their harvest and after days of work my body feels totally broken. But even though it’s hard work, harvesting together with your friends can be fun. Especially when the days end with a communal dinner. This year it was also the beautiful warm weather that made it nice to help out: yesterday I could have picked the olives from the nets in my bikini, it was that warm in the sun.

Lesvos has millions of olive trees, but most of them are harvested by hand. In some fields they use those small trilling machines, a kind of vibrator, sticks with round flying plastic strokes– a marvellous toy for the men. But mostly getting the olives out of the trees is done with a long wooden stick that you use to bat the olives out of the trees, just like the ancient Greeks used to do.

In Morocco also they use wooden sticks to get the olives out of the tree. Looking at this little movie on YouTube The olive oil of Bhalil,
anyone who knows how to harvest will wonder why there are so few and such small nets under the trees. My experience is that when harvesting, you put as many nets as you can in a huge square around the trees, so that afterwards there is no need to creep around on the soil to pick all the olives that have fallen beyond the nets.

The movie shows a pretty old-fashioned olive press: with huge millstones, which here on Lesvos are only found in the museums; they make a paste out of the olives, which is spread on thin mats, which are stapled and then pressed for the oil. It is not so long ago that on Lesvos they were pressing the oil in the same way.

In America they have mobile olive presses. Those would be nice to have on the island: because the press drives to your field you are assured that the olives are pressed immediately (the quicker the harvested olives are pressed, the better the quality) and you do not have to haul all those heavy sacks full of olives to the press.

The human race likes to invent things to make life better and this is how a person made this harvestmachine – a multi vibrator. Although I ask myself if this is useful. Mostly it looks like this way the man can very happily and relaxed drive his tractor along the trees, while afterwards it’s the women who have to go into the nets and clean up his mess.

Than the fully automatic foldable, turned-upside-down umbrellas with built-in vibrators do a better job. You just embrace the tree and give it a tight hug and hoppa, on to the next tree. And women are no longer needed to pick up the spoiled olives.

It can be done even quicker if you use those monstrous machines, which drive right over the trees while at the same time picking the olives. I might be a little old fashioned, but I think this method has some minor flaws: The trees must be kept small and form long straight lines. This way you get a land full of olive hedges. Imagine if here on Lesvos they were to cut all those old and beautifully formed olive trees in order to plant rows of small trees? The landscape would be altered considerably. And harvesting would no longer be such a party: one person would just race over all those trees and finished. Gone would be the romantic harvest of the olives.

I do understand that this way you would get a bigger harvest, but what’s wrong with the olives of Lesvos, which are treasures – mostly harvested with pleasure and producing a high quality oil? I do hope that it will take some time before the wooden sticks and the nets are replaced by such all-in-one machines. Don’t forget that olives picked by hand give the best quality oil.

In Morocco donkeys still participate in the olive harvest. Here in Greece most of them have already been replaced by pick-ups. Donkeys here are even at risk of dying-out; but that is a story for another time. On YouTube you can see how they make the olive oil here on Lesvos: simply – but with care.

(With thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2011

Sardian nuts

(Sweets from the Russian olive tree)

Even after two years the leaders of Europe could not save Greece from an economical downfall, nor could they stop the crisis in Europe. Alexander the Great only needed ten years to conquer half the world.

Imagine that just to travel on foot to India nowadays would take you more than a year. And Alexander, who dragged an army of ten thousand behind him, wasn’t simply doing a pilgrimage like a walk to Compostella (Spain). His forces did more than kilometres per day; during their travels they were busy fighting bloody battles, Alexander entertained himself with the people he conquered and made sure that his army was invincible.

His army was good at inventing military devices, like the torsion catapult, but it is also said that Alexander invented shaving. He insisted that his soldiers shaved every day in order that during battle the enemy had no grip on his soldiers’ beards.

Alexander not only conquered half the world; he also changed it. He spread Greek culture far and wide and in return his soldiers experienced and acknowledged new cultures. And, believe me, they certainly brought home lots of things, like apples and aubergines, from these foreign countries,.

Alexander came across the Sardian nut tree, not so far from home, in Sardis, the capital of the ancient empire of Lydia (West-Turkey), which had been conquered by the Persians before Alexander himself. Obviously much taken by that tree, he ordered his army to plant Sardian trees all over Greece. Later the Romans dispersed this tree even further through their vast empire.

And this is how the chestnut tree, as the Sardian nut tree is now known, came to Europe. In Asia, chestnuts had already been known for thousands of years as a staple food and when people couldn’t afford to grow corn, or when a harvest went wrong, they would use the chestnut to make flower for their breads.

Nowadays you will mainly be served roasted chestnuts when visiting one of the chestnut festivals in Greece: in Kastanitsa (Arcadia), Paleochori (Kavala), Damaskinia (Kozani), Karitsa (Larissa), Arna (Laconia), Elos (Crete) and in Agiasos on Lesvos.
Although the Greek kitchen has a large variety of chestnut recipes: stuffed turkey, garlic sauce with chestnuts, rice with chestnuts and chestnut cakes.

I love chestnuts, but I also hate this fruit. I enjoy eating them a lot; but I hate to peel chestnuts.

When I go to the chestnut wood above Agiasos I am always tempted to bring home a large bag of chestnuts. There are thousands that wait to be picked up. Once home I roast some and then I gather courage to peel some for a chestnut puree. To do this requires some time. With a sharp knife you make a cross in the outer shell, then you cook them in some water for a few minutes and then you can remove the outer shell and start peeling them.
Chestnuts don’t have a smooth skin, but rather like walnuts, the skin has a ribbed surface with folds with requires a lot of patience remove.

No sooner have I made the puree than this delicacy is consumed. And although I intend to make another one, I usually don’t fancy doing it — so I will never make it nor do something else with the rest of the chestnuts.

Now I find myself with another basket full of chestnuts brought back from Agiasos. The first ones have been roasted. And even though it was a real job to peel them I enjoyed them a lot; but preparing another chestnut puree, pfffff, I just can’t face it. Last night I took a look on the internet: hoping to find an easier way to peel them and indeed I found a new tip to get rid of these nasty skins. I immediately commenced work to test the tip.

Eureka! It does work! And it’s even more simple. So instead of the dangerous job of making a cross incision on the flat side (when before you know it your knife shoots across the hard surface of the outer shell and causes cuts your fingers)– with a big knife you just have to chop the chestnuts in half. You put them in a casserole, cover with cold water, boil the chestnuts for some minutes and then you pull off both their skins with pincers. If I do like this peeling method, I might use all the chestnuts to make a nice chestnut bread and I might even try out a recipe for the famous French marrons glacés.

While experimenting with the chestnuts, I took some sweets from the ‘Sweet Tree’ to roast them on my new woodstove. They come from the Russian olive tree or silver berry (Elaeagnus angustifolia). A neighbour told me that when she was a child they used to roast and eat them. According to her they tasted like marshmallows. The tree looks like a weeping willow and its fruit is like light brown olives. When raw the inside looks like candy floss but their taste is dry and mealy. My finding is that when you warm them up (slightly roasted), they don’t get a taste like a marshmallow but more like a warm candy floss. Which is not bad for a sweet you can get free from nature. I can imagine that roasting these Russian olives will be a good substitute when chestnuts are not around.

(With thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2011

Rain

Rain over the Gulf of Kalloni

On Saturday we were all looking forward for the rain to fall. After a summer with only blue skies, you want something different. But instead of the rain, we got the last trick of the season from our arsonist. He set fire to a field left from the road from Molyvos to Favios. The southwest wind that preceded the rain was blowing hard; the firemen were not at strength, because, amongst other things, there were no planes to help control the fire as they already were parked in their winter stabling.

The fire was lit in at least five different places and it was free to travel; it hurried up the mountains in the direction of both Eftalou and Vafios. Within two hours the fire crept over the mountain at the camping site at Eftalou, where it threatened a farm and houses. Fortunately the firemen on the road to the dump knew how to stop the fire; because had it gone further, crossing that road, the fire would have found a paradise of pines and olive trees and then the disaster would been great and Eftalou left totally blackened and charred.

About an hour after the last flames were extinguished, a hesitant rain started to pour down from the black sky. There was just enough water to give the people living around the fire a worryless sleep.

On Sunday thundering clouds sailed by and flashing lightning hurried along the horizon but it was only at night that the downpour started and on Monday the Heavens opened and let down a continuous fall of water.

That was enough to put out all fires and a blessing for the olive trees, which, for the moment, received enough water – thank you – in order to get ready for a good harvest.

The falling rain also lowered the temperatures and so finally the long and beautiful summer has come to an end.

Tomorrow the sun will be back, but then the leaves will whirl down and temperatures will no longer reach 30oC. Fresh green grasses, yellow and purple autumn crocus and pink cyclamen are emerging from the earth: Kalo ftinopero (have a good autumn), like the Greeks say.

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2011

The miraculous world of Mary

(Interior of the Maria Vrefokratousa church in Ayasos)

On Monday August 15 it will be Maria Assumption. After Easter this is the biggest holiday in Greece: when Maria will be taken into heaven. It is said that Maria spent the last years of her life in Ephesus, across the Aegean in Turkey, just opposite Samos. The Virgin Maria had been taken there from Jerusalem, by the apostle John, in order to escape the prosecutions of Christians.

On a hill, just beside a source John built her a house. Maria died after nine years living in Ephesus. The apostles buried her coffin in a cave a few kilometres from her house. St. Thomas however couldn’t make it on time for the funeral and when he did arrive, they all returned to the cave. Opening the coffin so that St. Thomas could have a proper goodbye it was revealed that Maria’s body was gone, although the coffin had been properly locked before opening: Maria had been taken to Heaven.

This is the story of the German nun Anna Katherina Emmerich
(1774 – 1824) who had, during her life, experienced plenty of visions from the lives of Jesus and Mary. When, at the end of her life, she became seriously ill there were few people she allowed around her. One of them was the German poet Clemens Brentano who wrote down Emmerich’s stories and later published them.

This is how curious people started to look for the house of Maria, that Emmerich had described so clearly, in the surroundings of Ephesus. In 1881 a priest from Paris found the location, but nobody believed he had found the house of Mary. Ten years later a group of people found the same location and this time they were believed. It was the ruins of an old monastery, with behind a path leading to the top of a mountain, a little stream passing by and a source. It is amazing to think that a German woman, who had never been there, had described this place so accurately. Later scientists revealed that under the remains of the monastery from the 6th – 7th century, there were indeed walls from the first century. Today the house of Maria has been rebuilt and it is a very popular place of pilgrimage.

Greece’s number one place for Maria pilgrimages on the island of Tinos – say the Lourdes of Greece – is also connected to a story from a nun who had a vision. The nun Pelagia was aged only fifteen in 1822 when Mary told her where to find an icon. So people went digging in the field she described and at the second try they indeed found an old icon, which is said to have been made by the evangelist Lucas. It has been attributed with so many miracles, curing people from illnesses, that the church Our Lady of Tinos (Panagía Evangelístria) was built to house the icon. It now attracts thousands of pilgrims. Even today many people pray to Maria to be cured and in return they promise to travel to her church on their knees, or even rolling or on their stomach..

Lesvos has two pilgrims centres dedicated to Maria: the
Maria Vrefokratousa church in Ayasos and the Maria Glikofiloussa church in Petra. The story of the icon in the church on the rock in Petra says that the icon belonged to a fisherman who always took it with him. In a rough sea the icon was lost. Once ashore, the fisherman saw a tiny light glowing on a huge rock and there he found his icon. He took the icon back to sea and again the icon got lost. When he found the icon for the second time on the huge rock, he realised that he had to build a church and leave the icon there. The church is from the seventeenth century and was rebuilt in 1840.

Another miraculous story is that of the Church of Lagouvarda in Markopoulo on the island of Kefalonia (Cephalonia). Each year in the first weeks of August this church is visited by snakes! When the people come to honour Mary during the 14th and 15th of August, the little snakes not only crawl around the icons, but are also passed from hand to hand by the believers. When Assumption Day is over, the snakes disappear as quickly as they came. These snakes belong to the Catsnake family (Telescopus fallax ) and are said to bring luck. Their non-appearance in the church during two years was seen as a bad omen: in 1940 when the island was occupied by the Italians during World War II and in 1953, in the midst of August when serious earthquakes destroyed large parts of the villages on the island.

It is another story involving nuns explaining these odd visitors. Once a monastery with nuns in Markopoulo was besieged by pirates. The nuns were very scared and they prayed to the Holy Mary saying that they preferred to be changed into snakes rather than fall into the hands of the pirates. And so it happened. When the pirates finally penetrated the monastery they were met by hundreds of snakes and they fled as fast as they could, leaving the monastery unharmed.


So here in Greece people keep occupied with Mary and her miracles during the month of August; the faithfull flood all the different places of pilgrimage, such as Agiasos and Petra, where it’s so busy you wouldn’t think there is a crisis going on.

I myself am not such a big believer, but I have to thank Mary on my bare knees for bringing back my dog Humpedumpy. We had to take her to the vet in Mytilini and when she arrived in the city she panicked, got off her collar and ran away. For ten days she was lost in the big city. Then a friend phoned me saying that she had seen the dog walking in a busy street outside of Mytilini where I was later able to pick her up. In the meantime my beloved Labrador Black Jack has died after a short illness but I guess no miracle can be produced to bring him back.

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki

Art to eat

My father always said that I should not play with my food. In France they consider bread as holy and you are not supposed to play with it. So I never play with the food on my plate. But I have other ways to play with food.

Here in Greece, I prefer to eat the vegetables of the season (there is hardly any other choice). So when the summer advances and the heat boils parts of your brain and I arrive at the vegetable shop I sometimes get mad about the small choice: tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines, paprika, zucchini, onions, potatoes: those are the vegetables of the season.

I have to admit that I have given up Greek cooking. I have never understood how the Greeks know how to turn such simple ingredients into five star dishes. I have decided that in my kitchen it is more fun to play with those local ingredients than to labour to become a Greek cook.

For example, I love an African couscous and the only ingredient not available on the island is the couscous itself (those little wheatflour grains). You can import it from abroad or buy it at the Alpha Vita in Mytilini. But be careful what you buy: the Greeks have now discovered couscous as well, or let’s say they have produced something they call couscous; but it’s very tiny pasta balls that has a totally different property than the real thing – juice-loving little grains made out of wheatflour. Nor can you get merguez sausages on the island; but you can bake the local home made sausages with lots of hot paprika powder, which gives an inkling of the taste of merguez. Other specific ingredients for a couscous dish are tomatoes, chickpeas, mint, lamb meat which are all readily available during a Greek summer.

Another favourite dish is a Spanish paella and all the ingredients, except again for the sausages (a paella has hot chorizo sausage), are available. If you wish to make a paella with shellfish, you have to wait for the winter when they come fresh from the Bay of Kalloni. But with frozen shrimps (the fresh ones also come only during the winter), octopus and other fresh fish you can make a lovely paella. Saffron comes mostly from Kozani, the region in Greece where saffron crocuses are grown on large scale. The Greeks also make rice dishes with shellfish, but they keep it simple: just rice cooked in the cooking juice of the shellfish.

I also experiment with somewhat simpler dishes. For example, when you make a cream out of feta, cheese spread and other local cheeses (like ladotiri or graviera) you get a tasty dip which you serve with slices of cucumber. You can also spread the cream on grilled slices of aubergine. You roll them up, pin them together with a tooth pick and you’ll have a wonderful snack. And have you ever served feta with quince jelly, oriental fig confiture? Or you can serve it, as the French do, with some of their goat’s cheese, — just aroused with some honey and sprinkled with thyme? And then there are those Italian courgette pancakes made with grated courgette, eggs, garlic and basil.

Greeks will not approve when I will tell them about the fish terrine that I made recently with the fish that was supposed to be used for a fish soup. Greeks don’t like to mash their food and so a fish remains whole until it ends up on your plate (except of course for those in the soup). But when there’s a heat wave, like we have at the moment, you don’t fancy soup, so — a fresh fish terrine is a welcome change of food.

And, during this summer heat, how about a delicious icecold Spanish gazpacho (tomato soup)? I was once served a very tasty cold Greek yoghurt-cucumber soup by a friend who got the recipe from his mother who lives in Kozani. So the Greeks know a cold soup. But best cold soup you can get at the moment in Molyvos is the famous and incredible lovely carrot soup from the restaurant Majorani.

But what to do with all those melons? For the honeydew melons there is the old standby recipe of slices of melon with smoked ham. But a good ham (unless imported), is difficult to find here on the island, just like paté. You only get those farmers’ sausages, which are lovely, but why can’t they produce smoked hams, like they do on Cyprus?

A few years ago, I wrote about how, every summer, everybody is confronted with enormous amounts of water melon. You can even grill them: grilled watermelon. A while ago I saw an even better use for a watermelon: water melon art. I was flabbergasted by the beautiful objects they carved out of the fruit. On YouTube you will find plenty of instructive films on how to make them: for example – carving roses. And when you spoil one, you can eat it yourself!

It would be a super attraction for the tourists on Lesvos. The island does not have enough sandy beaches to organize a sandcastle contest. Nor does it have the right climate to build huge palaces out of ice. But Lesvos has mountains of watermelons and with them you can create large fields of flowers. If on Rhodes they can dance the sirtaki with 2000 persons, why can we not change 2000 watermelons into a piece of art?

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2011

Dance the night away

I finally have the feeling that summer has arrived: temperatures are climbing above 30°C and from the beach children’s noisy voices beam through the neighbourhood. It’s the time when people on the beach and the streets take up their summer mood: racing taxi’s and mopeds.

Crisis or not, Greeks always enjoy summer. Especially the nights when work has been done and the afternoon heat has passed away. Even though the municipality does not have too much money, it has presented a reasonable cultural summer program, although most events are taking place in the capital Mytilini. Here in the north we have to make do with a music performance of Nick Tsirigotis on the main square of Petra (21.00 on July 18) and on August 6th there is music and dance from the Ionian Islands in the castle of Molyvos. On August 7th in the same location there will be a children’s event called The princess and the frog (21.00). In addition to the famous Sardine Festival on August 6th and 7th in Skala Kalloni, Kalloni has some concerts and Plomari and Polichnitos have both one event. However for all other music and dance events you have to travel to Mytilini.

Maybe you are curious about the timing of the childrens’ event – nine o’clock in the evening – that’s because, in the summer, Greek children don’t go to bed early. They sleep in the afternoon when it’s so hot and they only go to the beach about six or seven o’clock. And when the parents go out for dinner much later, they take the kids along. In wintertime I have also been amazed about the late bedtime for children. More than once I have seen movies for children programmed very late on television. I wonder if Greek children ever go to bed early.

Here in the north we don’t have to be too sad about the meagre municipal cultural program. Besides the many local festivals and the celebration of the Asumption of Mary on August 15th, there are several restaurants which hire musicians to light up the hot summer nights. In any case, even without planned dance events, you will often find dancing because Greeks love to dance.

Dances of Lesvos have been influenced by history. The Karsilamas is a dance that came with the refugees from the East and this dance is now popular in both Turkey and on Lesvos. Karsilama means face to face and that is why the Karsilamas has to be danced by two people. It is also called ksila (χιλα), which means wood.

I prefer to watch an Ayvaliotikos Zeybekikos, another popular dance on Lesvos which I think is more dramatic. The name comes from Ayvalik, the village in Turkey opposite Lesvos, meaning that this dance also came from the other side. In this dance normally one person performs before a group.

It is pretty amusing to surf around on YouTube in order to see what little movies have been made of these and other Greek dances. I even found some instruction movies to teach you how to dance; but the instructions for how to dance the Karsilamas were too poor to be taken seriously. Just take a look at Music on Lesvos Island, and you will see that these dances are a little bit more complicated than just one, two, three, four.

However you can win prizes even though you don’t know all the steps to a Greek dance. This happened to father and son Stavros Flatley during the popular television program Britains got talent in 2009. Due to their great Greek charm and without too many Greek dancing steps they reached the final of the competition and became fourth.

In western European media Greeks are now said to be ouzo boozing lazy people, stopping work when they reach the age of fifty. People who visit Greece know that this picture is totally wrong. Especially in the summer season, old and young folks work like hell in order to save for the winter months when there is less work to be found. But late in the evenings, when a glass of ouzo may well appear on the table, the Greeks throw their tiredness into the air and not only drink but also dance the night away. Local tavernas and village festivals provide welcome opportunities to forget their worries. The bull festival in Aya Paraskevi has already passed but have a look at this man who wanted to dance but could not separate himself from his horse: a horse dance. And what do you do when you don’t want to go home after the Sardines Festival? You just continue to dance an improvised Karsilamas in front of the harbour.

Or, if want to get into the papers with your Greek dancing — then you have to go to Rhodes where, in Kremasti, on July 31, they will try to enter the Guiness Book of Records by having 2000 people dance the famous sirtaki dance. This dance is also called Zorba’s Dance. That’s because this dance was created during the filming of the famous movie Zorba the Greek where Anthony Quinn had the memorable leading role. The steps of traditional dances such as the hasapiko or the syrtos were too difficult for Quinn so they created a new dance for him with the music of Mikis Theodorakis. And that is why the most famous Greek dance is no older than 1964, when this movie came out and was an instant worldwide hit.

If you don’t fancy any Greek traditional dance, then you should come to Lesvos where from July 14 to 17 there is going to be a tango festival in Molyvos. What better than to do a tango under a bright moon to music of famous deejays? During the daytime there will be workshops and dance demonstrations by famous tango dancers.

Summer heat has arrived, along with the languorous nights. What more can you do than dance the night away?

(With thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2011

Surprising waste

(The 'open air museum' near Old Andissa)

Nature on Lesvos is still very green, although summer is seriously colouring the landscape yellow. In quite another way, the island is slowly greening: the landscape is being cleared of illegal dumps and the recycling of waste is starting.

This spring the environmental group Lesvos go Green distributed flyers telling us what to do with the waste that can be recycled (batteries, electrics and electronic appliances, cooking and frying oil, light bulbs, old cars and so on). You may have to search a little to find the different containers, but they are here and in this way Lesvos is becoming a greener island.

Recycling Aegean came in 2001 to Mytilini and is now a huge recycling-plant. Here old iron, metal, tires, cars and packaging materials find a new life. Some 1300 tons of metal, 10 tons of wire, 40 tons of batteries, 40 tons of paper (mainly books) and 30 tons of aluminium packaging are gathered annually.

There is also a second recycling firm in Mytilini. But having different possibilities of recycling does not mean that the illegal dumping places on the island will disappear. The question is how all this waste material will reach the plants. There are some traders like the gypsies who gather old iron. But the average inhabitant of Lesvos doesn’t take his recycling items to Mytilini every week (although I have heard people say that they take their empty bottles to Mytllini because there are containers where you can dump them). I do hope that with better information – like the flyer from Lesvos go Green – more recycling will be done.

Apart from the waste to be recycled the normal rubbish also forms a problem. Written in 2009, the essay Moving Up the EU Waste Hierarchy in Remote Area, Exploring the Case of Lesvos Island, Greece written by Faikham Harnnarong predicted what is now going on. The central refuse plant of the island has been opened somewhere in the mountains between Mytilini and Mandamados. The problem now is how the local rubbish vans can get there, because those from Molyvos (and those of other faraway districts like Plomari, Polychnitos and Sigri) cannot drive each day up and down on a three hour journey. The crisis is not making things easier because, of course, there is no money to buy bigger trucks, for more petrol (the prices of petrol is rising by the week) or to pay more workers. So in the faraway regions (like here in the north) we have a huge problem. The local dumps are closed and now where can we go with the rubbish?

In Molyvos they found a solution, but already lots of people are protesting. In the municipal car park, a little outside of the village, but where people also live, they installed huge containers that each day are filled with rubbish. The containers were meant to be taken to the central refuse plant every second day, but because of the crisis this is not happening, so now the rubbish is piling up, causing a terrible stink and can be a danger to public health.

The village of Petra is also having problems with waste. As many public servants have not been paid for months sometimes they just do not collect the rubbish. Last weekend I saw the army coming down to the village in order to clean the streets and beaches.

So the refuse problem is not an easy one to handle, even though there are recycling plants and a central waste plant on the island. Let just say this: there is the willingness to treat refuse according to European standards and they created the places to do it; we now only have to hope that the crisis will soon end in order to solve all these logistic problems.

When you drive from the beach at Kambos along the coast to Old Andissa, you are driving along a river where you will see tons of old iron. The company Recycling Aegean would be happy to receive all this recycling material: there are tens of old trucks and shovels that –cleaned and polished – would belong to a museum.

Lots of museums in Greece are closed now because the state can no longer pay the staff. However, this ‘open-air museum’ would involve no cost as it would not need any personnel (assuming the trucks are not cleaned and polished). As the trucks are on the public road, there is no way other than to drive through this ‘museum’ if you want to continue your travel. But my guess is that lots of car lovers will jump out of their cars in order to take photographs.

Let’s hope that the collectors of old cars do not decide to remove this organised scrap-iron park, because this ‘drive-in-open-air museum’ is just another nice surprise that shows how some Lesviot people are creative with rubbish.

(With thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2011

Orchid Hunting

(A 'rasta-orchid' or Comperia comperiana)

Orchids form the biggest flower family that we know on earth. Their 21.000 – 26.000 officially accepted different species twice outnumber the birds and four times outnumber the mammals. Their beauty is recognized worldwide but when we look at their history, it seems that orchids are very dangerous flowers because they make many an orchid collector crazy. Collecting orchids can be a dangerous business.

When the first Asian orchids came to Europe during Victorian times (19th century) people were so enthusiastic that an orchid fever arose that killed several people. Europeans were sent deep into the unknown jungles of Borneo, Colombia or Peru in order to collect new species of orchids and to ship them back to Europe. During these perilous travels orchid hunters drowned in wild flowing rivers, were killed or eaten by cannibals, had lethal bites from dangerous snakes or died from malaria and other tropical diseases. Even in the 20st century people paid with their lives for their passion: around 1900 a group of eight orchid hunters left for the Philippines. One got eaten by a tiger, another was doused with cooking oil and burned alive, five just disappeared but the one survivor returned to Europe with 7000 species! Little decades later a group was taken hostage by natives in Papua New Guinea and some of them were beheaded before a rescue team could save the rest.

The stories of the surviving orchid hunters could be horrific. If they were not killed themselves they at least were witness to local wars with barbaric rituals and tortures or they might find a village full of breathtakingly beautiful orchids, that however smelled so bad that you even could not approach them.

Orchid hunters were not a kind people. They fought with each other, they burned down whole areas where they found precious orchids or they destroyed all they could not take with them; they caused huge damage so that their competitors could not find what they had discovered. It is even said that when the boxes with orchids were ready to be put on the ships to Europe they would pee on those of their competitors so that the flowers would not survey the journey. Of course during these sea journeys whole bunches of precious orchids got lost. The exotic flowers were often not good seafarers, ships were sunk or burned out.

Orchid hunters still exist and because the Asian orchids are most precious commercially, it is they that are collected by the most crazy people. The book Orchid fever of Eric Hansen gives an entertaining vision of how eccentric this orchid world of crazy people is.

In Greece where you can find some 200 species, the orchid hunters are a more friendly lot. In Greece they do not look to sell or smuggle orchids; here they are peacefully shot by cameras and before there were camera’s they were drawn or dried for a herbarium.

Between 1879 and 1889, when at the other side of the world many an orchid hunter got lost in the jungles, here on Lesvos people also researched plants and amongst them orchids. Father C.A. Candargy and his son P.C. Candargy noted about 27 species on the island. I suppose the Candargy’s were not eaten by tigers or cannibals, but they disappeared without trace into history. Their herbarium is still lost and besides some minor biographical points the only thing that is left of them is their book Flore de l’Ile de Lesbos, published in 1889.

Now they say that here on Lesvos there are some 70 – 90 species, of which about ten are pretty rare and the search for them will bring you to the most unexpected and beautiful places.

I would become crazy from such an orchid mania; the island is so big that it is absolutely impossible to look everywhere on the island and most orchids like to hide in their natural environment so that even if they are big, you just look past them. On top of that, you have to be in the right place at the right time. It can be that they have just finished blossoming, or that they are still to come.

Last week I joined an orchid hunt in the region of Megalochori, where some rare species must be hiding. I am not that fanatical about these flowers, so I also look for other flowers. My fellow travellers promised me I would see flowering peonies. But they were just finished, just like some of the tulips and fritellaria. So, I was a little disappointed. Happily enough there were plenty of nice orchids and I got very lucky to find a rare Comperts orchid (Comperia comperiana), an orchid with crazy wild hairs, therefore I call it a rasta-orchid.

Not only orchid hunters are crazy, so are the flowers themselves. They do everything to seduce their environment: they develop the most crazy perfumes, colours and forms to attract insects to help with fertilizing.

A late summer – still a little cold, especially in the mornings and evenings – has one advantage: the whole of nature is late and tourists who know the island from previous May months may be surprised by the explosion of flowers and the near tropical green colour of the landscape right now.

For the orchid hunter it means that he has to reschedule his search: the species that flower in May are still not to be found due to the weather or you just do not find them, which can be pretty confusing. But it means that the orchid season, on Lesvos starting in February, can last until late in July.

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2011

Bean Blues

(The broad bean plant has lovely flowers)

There is a day of spring and suddenly – zouffff – here is the summer. This year that day has come pretty late; in other years we have already had the first heat wave by now. But now, finally, here it is: the summer! Even though it has made its entrance very slowly.

As lovingly received as the summer, the first fresh beans of the year: koukias (broad beans) are being enthusiastically welcomed! Well, to be honest, they were already here many weeks before the summer.

Koukia (Vicia faba), used to be called favas and they were already being eaten some 6000BC in the Eastern Mediterranean. But they were also used for drawing lots to see who had to fight against who in the ancient Greek games of pankration (a combination of wrestling and boxing). In ancient Greece the seeds of the beans were used to ballot in the parliament: if you gave a black seed you did not agree, if you gave a white seed you did agree with a proposal.

The Greeks even had a special god for the beans: Kyamites. This rather mysterious God who looked after the bean harvest, had his temple on the road from Athens to Eleusis, a spot in Attica where they had celebrations for Demeter, goddess of the harvest.

The famous mathematician Pythagoras (570 – 495 BC) who came from Samos was also a philosopher and a reformer who had plenty of followers. Maybe this group was looked upon as a religious sect because they had serious rules to follow. They were forbidden to wear clothes made from animals, they were not allowed to pick up anything that fell from a table and they were not to eat beans, because Pythagoras thought that our ancestors lived in the beans. Maybe Pythagoras got that from Egypt where he had studied and where they believed that death travelled through the stem of the bean plants to the underworld. At the end of his life Pythagoras lived in Kronos (nowadays Corone in Italy). When the local people revolted against the Pythagorians and their revolutionary ideas, they mobbed their school and Pythagoras fled into a bean field. Here scientists disagree how Pythagoras died: some say that he walked slowly through the bean field because he was afraid to step on the beans and because of this he was caught and murdered. Others say he fled through the bean field, reached a temple where he hid and died from hunger.

In the novel Uncle Petros and Goldbach’s Conjecture from the Greek writer Apostolos Doxiades we also find a combination of beans and mathematics. In the story, Uncle Petros tries to prove Goldbach’s conjecture, which is - that any even number greater than two is the sum of two primes. For this he used (dried) beans that he scattered across his living room floor. Even two years after that the book was published and both the English and the American publishers of the book promised a one million dollar prize for anybody who could solve Goldbach’s conjecture, the problem remains unsolved.

You could say that beans do not bring luck in mathematics¬ – but that they can make you happy ending your hunger. In Holland broad beans are far less popular than here in Greece. When they are fresh, like here on the island, they can be turned into a five star dish. You pick them when they are still small and you cook and serve them in their pods.

When the beans are really big, they are less wanted by the Greeks. But I know better - take those huge beans out of their pods and bake them with some bacon and cream. Another five star dish!

A popular Greek dish, mainly in wintertime, is fava, which can be green or yellow. You might think this is a dish made of broad beans, but it is not. Fava is made with split peas (and sometimes with chick peas). Which is strange, because I have never seen fresh peas on the island. But I have seen thousands of broad beans. And when the bean plants sigh with the weight of their heavy fruit, everybody invites you to come and pick the beans. Even though Greeks do not like their beans so big, it is a pity to let them languish on the land. Do the Greeks not know that with double shelled koukia you can make a marvellous kind of fava? You get them out of their pods, you cook them for about five minutes and then you mash them with some pepper, salt, mint, thyme, some lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and an finely chopped onion. You sprinkle them with cheese and put them in the oven long enough to melt the cheese: a tasty dish made with ‘fava’ beans not called fava.

Around mid summer, when the very last bean comes from the field everybody is greatly disappointed that the beans’ time has ended and that we have to wait another year for fresh koukia.

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2011