There at the mill

The Netherlands is known for its windmills. Spain is known for its windmills which Don Quixote thought were giants. Greece is not known for its mills, but thousands are scattered across the country. The pictures of windmills standing next to a port are alluring advertising images for various capitals of Greek islands such as Chios, Mykonos and Rhodes.

Lesvos has lots of watermills, but they are so well hidden or camouflaged as a ruin, that they are difficult to find. In former times, and that's less than a century ago, each region had a watermill for grinding grain or pressing olives. Just go to the Mill Valley in Ligona, above Petra, where a walk takes you among walls and collapsed buildings that were once a bustling place with donkeys, farmers, millers and large bags of grain and flour. Now nature has reclaimed this region, a phenomenon that you will see everywhere on the island.

To my knowledge there is only one mill still active on Lesvos, which is that at Mylelia (on the road from Polychnitos to Mytilini, after the branch to Lambou Mili, before the road reaches the Gulf of Gera). There they still grind the grain in the traditional way, between large millstones and in a museum like shop they sell a wide range of flour products such as hand- made pastas and a variety of other island products, such as olive spreads, fruit jams and tomato sauces.

The mill at Eressos is just as impressive as that at Mylelia. Although almost completely restored, the mill doesn't grind grain, but it's the place where the mill is built, which makes the biggest impression. See: In the footsteps of Sappho.

When you drive from Plomari along the river Sedoendas up in the mountains, you come across a very large watermill, that is so far in decay that the Plomarians should be ashamed that they do not preserve a part of their history, if only to show their children how their grandparents produced flour to bake bread...

Diving deeper into the countryside, you keep on finding surprises. Last week I visited the mill at Klapados. Klapados was a small village in the north of the island, tucked away high in the mountains between Petra and Kalloni. Most residents were Ottoman Muslims and this was perhaps the reason why in December 1912 the last Ottoman soldiers regrouped around Klapados when they were chased by the Greeks who came to liberate the island. The battle began on 8 November 1912 when the Greeks, with the warship Averof, liberated Mytilini, after which the enemy was chased to the north of the island. On 8 December 1912 the Greek army achieved victory over the Ottomans in the Battle of Klapados. Subsequently, all Muslims were chased from the island. Although not everybody agrees, several sources say that the people of Klapados were not put on the boat to the Ottoman Empire, but were massacred.

Although the liberation of the Lesvorians started in Klapados, you will not find a glorious monument there to the general that led the Greeks to victory, but only a sign surrounded by crumbling ruins that mentions the Battle of Klapados. Despite the beautiful water fountain, the massive plane tree, the old bathhouse and a few walls still standing, the remnants of this once lively village give an eerie feeling. It's also said that they just let the corpses lie there, which explains why so few Greeks dare to visit this mountaintop and why there is so little left of the village. When you look up the mountain slope from the road, between the shrubs, grasses and trees, you can see the sad remains of many more houses.

The watermill at Klapados is also now only a ruin with large crumbling walls. But it is easy to imagine how the water once moved the large wooden paddles of the mill. The mill is at the bottom of a broad, steep grey cliff of about 50 to 60 metres, from where the water bounces off.

You have to know the place to find this watermill. A very narrow path takes you down into a valley that starts at the bottom of this impressive cliff where you find a little pond that marks the beginning of a merry rippling stream strewn with rocks. Like anywhere on the island this water attracts a jungle-like vegetation of ancient, big whimsical plane trees, overgrown by moss, lianes and other parasitic plants, and you imagine yourself immediately right in the country of Tarzan.

When I was there no water fell from the cliff, only a waterfall of thick tree roots, which imitate the undulating water and creep like an impressive live sculpture down along the wall. I can imagine that if enough rain has fallen to set the waterfall into motion, this place can be as magical as the waterfall at the Krineloe Mill at Eressos and the one at Achladeri.

I was a bit shocked by the reaction of the friends with whom I visited the waterfall. While I enjoyed the sight of the plane trees and their net of roots that competed with stones and moss for a spot next to the river, while I admired trees from all sides for their thick branches that reached like the curved wings of a mill into the blue sky, my friends wondered about the total absence of any waste. Am I already so integrated that I no longer see the waste scattered everywhere? It is clear that not many people know where the mill of Klapados is and that this is one of the Lesvorian mills that will silently disappear from the pages of history.

Copyright © Smitaki 2008

Following Sappho

Last week we enjoyed the warm Alkionides days, but for tomorrow they say snow is coming. On one of these warm days we travelled with friends to the west, to Eressos, where we would visit a waterfall.

Besides its hot springs Lesvos also has a number of waterfalls that could appear in the tourist guides, were they not so difficult to reach. The Pessa waterfall near Achladeri is the easiest to reach. Taking the road from Kaloni to Polichnitos, past Achladeri, there is a walking path that disappears deep into the pine woods. After about half an hour of walking you will reach this elegant waterfall. Opposite is a wooden platform that offers a beautiful view of the running water. When you go there in the summer, you could have the bad luck that there is no more water running. When the dry season is here, the water can disappear. Best time to visit the Pessa waterfall is in spring (after a wet winter!) or in the autumn, after the first rains.

There should be another waterfall near Asomatos (close to Agiassos), and one in the neighbourhood of Mandamados. The fourth big waterfall, close to Eressos, we visited last week. It was a nice and big surprise.

When you drive through the barren wild mountains of the west, you get the feeling that only thorny scrubs can grow there. The green valley of Eressos shows that in places where there is water, the area can be very fertile. So your conclusion is that the rest of the west is as dry as a desert. But it's the infertile volcanic rocks, that millions of years ago, after the eruptions of the volcanos, covered the west in thick layers, that made this desert-like sight of the mountains of the west, which once was a land full of trees, amongst others sequoias.

The waterfalls of Krinelou prove that these mountains don't lack water: a natural spring provides so much water that it causes these beautiful waterfalls. Deep between the faults of the mountain slopes it meanders downwards. Big plane trees are flourishing by little pools full of clear water. In the summer you can only dream of these places. But in this place your dreams come true: the source provides as much water in the summer as in the winter. During the heat waves this must be a hidden paradise.

And it's well hidden. It's a three hour walk from Eressos, or a little hours walking distance from the main road, or a fifteen minute very difficult drive with a good jeep (4WD). There you will find the watermill of Panayotis Krinelou, bordering these waterfalls.

Panayottis, once a ship's captain, has retired to the place where his grandfather long ago ground corn. In the summer Panayotis lives at the mill, in the winter he lives in Eressos, from where he transports the materials to rebuild the mill and to transform the place around it into an ecological Valhalla. There are seats cut out of tree trunks, he cut through rocks in order to make paths with wooden rails, he made a wooden platform in front of the waterfall with some seats so that you can gaze for hours into the falling water. He made a little stream going to a fish pond, his neighbour, a sheep farmer, has water pipes going to the feeding places of his sheep and Panayotis made pipe lines to his newly planted fruit trees, which in the future will add to the shadows already provided by the big plane trees.

Panayotis told us that these waterfalls were a favourite place of the poetress Sappho. From Eressos she traveled by donkey to bathe in the cooling water. When he was young Panayotis visited the falls daily. Barefoot he walked in the morning the three hours to go there, he then herded the sheep (which means up mountain, down mountain), and in the evening it took him another three hours to come home.

The old mill with its huge millstones and its shabby appearances, makes you reflect upon the past. It's not that long ago that the island was very poor and didn't know anything about the rapid modernisation of the world around it. There are even Greeks who say that Lesvos never has been poor: even during the war there was plenty of food because everybody had some cattle, a vegetable garden and ate chorta from the mountains. But how many times do you hear Lesvorians tell that when they were young they had no shoes? Bette Roland says in her book 'Lesvos, the pagan island' what an expedition it was in the Sixties to travel from Mytilini to Eressos. It took her a whole day!

Nowadays you drive comfortably over tarmac roads and every village, which took days to reach in the old times, is now within two hours reach. Although the way to the door of the mill of Krinelou is still not paved. That may be good, because you wouldn't want to think about all the many bus excursions going to the Petrified Forest making a stop at the waterfalls, so that masses of tourists can refresh themselves in the clear water, so that you'd have to queue in order to swim under the falling water.

In March we will return to the watermill and Panayotis will then show us the paths where once Sappho drove her donkey. Then maybe I'll tell you how to reach this paradise.

Copyright © Smitaki 2008