Creative with bricks

Wherever you live on this island, it is impossible not to be intrigued by the stones, because they are everywhere. When you are at the beach, you find the most beautiful colored pebbles. Try to plant an elegant rose in the soil and you will meet stubborn stones which are very hard to be moved. Stones are part of your life: walls enclose gardens and orchards with olive trees are supported by stones; lots of traditional houses are built with natural stone; landscapes are scattered with big rocks, mountains show colorful rock formations.

Lesvos used to be a volcanic island and the volcanoes probably not only spewed fire but also threw out big stones all over the island. The plateau near Skalochori looks like a moon landscape with huge rocks scattered around, as if the Cyclops had been playing games with them. The famous Panagia Glykofiloussa Church in Petra is build on a huge rock (Petra in Greek means rock), mysterious small heaps of stones decorate the tableland of Michou, the Golden Beaches with black stones are very popular at Eftalou, but the beach with white pebbles in Skala Kidonia is less known. (The beach at Melinda is brilliant white with quartz and just a few meters into the water there’s a vast single stone like a small island TB).

The mountains above Plomari are known as the “crystal” mountains because they secrete crystal and other semi-precious stones. The southern beaches are the places to find the most colored stones. In the west there are petrified trees which have strewn the shore with multi colored stones — the slivers of million year old trees. The bare landscape is often crossed with long walls of stone that creep over the mountain slopes like arteries you find on stones. (Some of the island’s ancient walls are made of such large ‘polygonal’ stones you wonder how anybody could have lifted them TB).

So, it is normal that people that built houses here were inspired by the plethora of stones. The traditional houses of Molyvos, and of most other villages on Lesvos, are built from natural stones, and they are not painted chalk white and mostly they have red tiled roofs. A few have upper storey closed verandas made of wood but nowadays modern houses are built with concrete blocks and are plastered and painted. Although some house owners might add a natural stone wall for decoration, fewer and fewer people choose the traditional stone style for the structure of a new house.

Some traditional walls were made with bricks. In the Ypsilon Monastery close to Sigri walls and chapels are decorated with lines of bricks. (The handsome old olive press buildings (and chimneys) were usually built of brick TB) and in the mountain village Ampeliko, below the Olympos mountain, towards Plomari, the priest of the Saint Nicolas Church has been going crazy with bricks. The porch of the church displays the creative wedding of natural stone and brick, and so do the arches of the public building/museum and the fountain and other small decorations nearby.

In earlier times the country houses were built with little towers, in order to watch out for the pirates. These are the famous Tower Houses of Lesvos. You can find them around Mytilini. When you approach the village of Sigri, on your right you see the arches of bricks of a Tower House nearly hidden behind trees and a hill. Each time we visited Sigri we notice an arch or another tower has been added. Last year thanks to the internet I found out that this is the Tower House, a hotel that has 4 apartments. The owners, Evangelia and Dimitrios Komninos started building some eleven years ago: it’s like a castle with towers, patios, and covered balconies hidden under arches, all built with wood, natural stone and a lot of bricks that have been used to decorate the walls and terraces. Evangelia and Dimitrios are not afraid anymore of pirates, they just love the old architecture of their island.

Dimitrios, a renovator of old houses, has not finished yet. Next to the main house he is adding the finishing touches to a large, luxurious apartment. It seems that the more he builds the more artistic he becomes, because this new building is a showpiece in how to be creative with brick, inside as well as out. The wood and stone of the interior play a tremendous game together. Dimitrios has even made two inside wall decorations with stones of petrified wood. All Tower House apartments are fancifully furnished: heavy wooden pieces, some antique, some from India, with white lace curtains and classic tapestry. Their most beautiful item of furniture is in the new apartment: an antique wooden bed, which was once used as a seat by a rich Indian raja (even though now it’s a bed) on the back of an elephant.

The garden has a magic view over Sigri, its harbor and the island Nissiopi opposite of the harbor. You will find romantic seats, strange formed stones that are worth a place in a modern museum, a swimming pool with a bar, an outside oven, a barbeque, (all of course, fully decorated with bricks), a lookout post and a small place for children to play, fruit trees, flowers, waterfalls, all designed to give a pleasurable time in the garden. Together with the new apartment (another one is planned above), Dimitrios is also building a little church that is, no need to say, fully decorated with bricks.

Whenever you want to spoil yourself by staying some days in this fairy tale-like Tower House I have another tip: the best place to watch the sunset over the sea at Sigri is from the café-par (no spelling mistake) Etzi, which is in the fields behind the sandy beach of Faneromani, a few kilometers out of Sigri. With a little bit of luck you’ll get your retsina served in glasses owned by the grandmother of Nondas, the owner. And when you get to know him, you may even have a chance to have a ride in his home made automobile. I had no time to test his motorized pedal boot. Just as at the Tower House, and in the fascinating environment around Sigri, where the mountains still hide hundreds of petrified trees, you could stay forever in the bar Etzi…

@ Smitaki 2009

(with thanks to Tony Barrell)

Secret Sigri

It's cold! Instead of 28°C it's now only 18°C and the storm blows the waves into fuming white horses. That's a beautiful sight, but it really makes you think it's winter, like summer is definitely over.

In a few days the normal good Greek weather will return. Life will take its normal course. The elections are done, the children are at school, autumn can start.

This used to be different. Years ago the summer would last until the 15th October. From the 15th June until the middle of October whole villages moved to the seaside. The Australian writer Betty Roland described in her book 'Lesbos, the pagan island' how in the sixties Eressos and all its inhabitants, shops and kiosks moved by car and donkey to Skala Eressos, to live there for the summer.

I'd already asked myself why it is that on the Greek islands there are so few old villages at the seaside. The answer is simple. The people used to live as high as possible in the mountains, or as far away from the coast, so that they were difficult for the pirates that regularly looted the islands to find. Lesvos was even a pirate nest in the 15th century. Then the famous pirate brothers Barbarossa, born in the village of Papados on the Gulf of Yera, ruled all of the Mediterranean. (see: Boulevard News 20).

Skala means stairs, and so Skala were the stairs to the sea: Eressos and Skala Eressos, Kaloni and Skala Kaloni, Sykaminia and Skala Sykaminia, Kydonis and Skala Kydonis, Loutra and Skala Loutra, Polichnitos and Skala Polichnitos. Skoutaros doesn't have a Skala but has its summer houses at Anaxos, Andissa goes to Gavathas and Old Andissa and Clio goes to Tsonia.

Now most summer villages have been changed into tourist villages. Especially Anaxos, once a beautiful beach surrounded by fields and summer houses, is now stuffed with apartments and hotels. The villages that used to be deserted in the summer are no longer empty and I bet that many an old Greek now suffocating in the summer heat will long for the good old time when the whole village moved to the seaside.

The few villages that are at the seaside, had, just like the capital Mytilini, a castle to protect them. The most famous seaside village with a castle on the island is Molyvos. Petra is also by the sea but has no castle. It's probably the Maria church on the rock of Petra that protects this village. A seaside village which also has a castle is the village of Sigri. Sigri doesn't know mass tourism and is situated alone at the far western point of the island.

Many tourists will probably have had a quick view of the village, visiting the Petrified Forest and after that going to the museum of the Petrified Forest at Sigri. That's a pity, because Sigri has a lot more to offer to tourists. Especially to people that don't like mass tourism and like quiet beaches.

Sigri is the only white village of Lesvos. The merry white houses look out onto the port where even ferries sometimes go. In the summer the village has a few restaurants and most of them serve lobster as a local speciality. In the winter only the taverna in the port is open.

The large bay before the village is protected by the long island of Nissiopi where you can see some petrified trees. The port itself used to be protected by the Turkish castle that was built by sultan Mehmet in 1746. Especially the huge entrance doors are still very impressive. The big church Agia Triada is also a remnant from the Turkish occupation. The building used to be the mosque of the village. At the left side of the castle is a picturesque bay with a sandy beach that lies hidden from the winds that always seem to blow in Sigri.

That wind blows full on the beaches of Faneromeni, north of Sigri, where often you will find huge waves, a yet undiscovered paradise for surfers. At the beginning of this beach you will find rocks that seem to meander in funny shapes and where you can clearly see how very long ago lava embraced marble. The colourful lines make beautiful designs on the rocks. At the other side of the beach you will find the small Church of Zoedochos, built around a small cave. Behind this beach, along the river of Tapsas you will find surprising green fields with grapes, figs and almond trees. The small lanes are bordered by huge reeds that bow over the road, forming shadowy and cool tunnels.

If you would see the nicest view on the island, you also have to go to Sigri. Then you take the road to Eressos, which goes over rough and bare mountains. When you come over the top of the last mountain, the valley of Eressos opens up to you: sharp mountain tops, brown yellow slopes, white houses like white flocks in the scenery, files of green trees that snake through the landscape, wherever there is water in the ground. It is a breathtaking view.

I don't quite understand why Sigri hasn't yet been discovered by mass tourism. It's a lovely little village, with beautiful beaches and good restaurants. But maybe it's best like it is: a village that's not spoiled by Greeks who stuffed it full of apartment buildings, restaurants and shops. It's still a pure seaside village where the salt wind not only keeps the houses cool, but also the heads of the inhabitants, not yearning for the big money.

Unlike the municipality of Zacharoa, where in August during the latest wildfires on the Peloponnesos there were the most victims. Last week it was announced that the municipality together with the Ministry of Finance signed contracts with building developers in order to rebuild the burnt seaside. Hundreds of illegal buildings will be legalised and they'll add more buildings. They say that it'll be good for the local economy. So the arsonists got what they wanted! The region however is an area protected by the ecology department of Europe. After the elections the Greek government saw what a mistake was made and another Minister cancelled all the contracts.

Not knowing all the dirty games that were played in his municipality, last weekend the mayor of Zacharo died of his wounds sustained when he personally fought the flames...

Copyright © Smitaki 2007