The rich of Greece

(The harbour of Piraeus)

Greece has two important sources of income: tourism and shipping. Tourism is the visible and newest part, shipping the older and more diffuse one, because however many ships you see crossing the great blue sea, you will seldom know whether the ship disappearing over the horizon belongs to a Greek shipping company.

Greek maritime history started long before Aristotle Onassis fled Smyrna and started to build his shipping empire in Greece. Centuries before Christ, Greeks travelled over the oceans to transport goods, to look for new countries or to fight their wars. Troy was besieged by 1186 ships, Agamemnon of Mycenae commanding 300 of them, and 80 were delivered by the Greek islands.

In Dorian Times, islands like Samos and Chios built their own fleets. Their ships went as far as Cyprus and Syria and to the Black Sea in Russia.

The Romans obviously didn’t have such good sea legs, because even though they conquered half the world, they left it to the Greeks in their boats to travel the seas. The Greeks transported goods but also soldiers, merchants and the first tourists, who travelled amongst other places to Lesvos to relax and see a new culture.

In 803 the first maritime bank was founded by the Byzantine emperor Nikiforos to lend money to shipowners. It did not bring fortune, because the Greeks were losing more and more commerce to Italian city states like Genoa and Venice, who eventually took over all sea commerce. This lasted until the 16th century when the Ottoman Empire spread like an inkblot over Europe. It was then that the fortune of the Greeks returned, because, like the Romans, the Turkish rulers of the Ottoman Empire weren’t too keen on venturing out on the seas and left the shipping to the Greeks, who were by then known as the best seafaring people. The Greeks made huge profits and gained privileges, using the Ottoman protection to reinstall their power over the European seas. It is claimed that it was these free seafarers that encouraged the Greece people to get rid of their Ottoman occupiers, which they succeeded in doing in 1829 (Lesvos was only freed in 1912).

Now we come to modern Greek shipping history, best known because of Aristotle Onassis, not only because he became so wealthy, but also because of his affair with the opera singer Maria Callas and his marriage to Jacky, the widow of John F. Kennedy. His first marriage was to Athina Maria Livanos, daughter of the shipping magnate Stavros G. Livanos. Livanos’ other daughter, Eugenia, married Stavros Niarchos, a man who also built a large shipping empire like that of his father-in-law and of Onassis.

The Greek/American writer Nicholas Gage wrote the fictitious story The Bourlotos Fortune, based on the lives of these three shipping giants. In this novel you can read how they built up their wealth, lost it and built it up again into a huge empire; and you can also learn how they ruled over their businesses from London and America, fleeing wars and crisis in Europe, leaving their homeland Greece in distress.

Now Greece again is severely in crisis, even though the Greek shipping business is as rich as ever. Nowadays you do not hear much about shipping owners, as you did in the times of Onassis when he was always in the news; you will now only hear about them when they, for example, marry a famous model. And they not only build ships nowadays, but also museums, tourist resorts, hospitals and scientific research centres.

Inousses, a small archipelago next to Chios, is best known for its shipping families and whilst inhabited by about only 800 people, possesses a maritime academy, a boarding school for boys, a modern stadium and a maritime museum. Chios is the region reknowned for having delivered the most successful shippers, for example Stavros Livanos. There are even people who believe that the famous explorer Christoffel Columbus comes from Chios.

Lesvos is rarely mentioned in Greek maritime history. The only famous seamen she produced were the pirate brothers Barbarossa. For centuries piracy made the South European seas unsafe, and in the 16th century is was not uncommon for regular traders to cooperate with pirates. Islands like Mykonos and Milos even became wealthy thanks to piracy.

Maybe that’s what also happened in Lesvos and the reason why Lesvos has no significant place in Greek maritime history. It was only in 1972 that a shipping business was founded on Lesvos, and by the island itself: Nel Lines, now known for the ferries that go between the mainland and different islands.

Real shipping magnates live where they pay lowest tax rates, not unknown for international traders. If all the Greek shipping companies would come back to Greece and pay taxes, the country would not have been so deeply buried in debt.

I take it that Nel Lines are still somewhere in Greece. This summer they extended a hand to the Greek people by reducing prices for the fares to the islands (although they might be doing this because of a competitive fight with other shipping companies). Airline companies should look to this example. Last week the neighbouring island of Lemnos complained to the government that flights to the island were far too expensive (from Athens 300 – 500 euro): how can you encourage tourism when travelling in Greece is so expensive? And what about the inhabitants who are regularly forced by medical reasons to travel to the capital?

Rich Greeks like to build a little church when they are thankful for their good fortune. And they continue building them during the crisis. There are so many on Lesvos that there might be one little church for each inhabitant. Building a small church creates just a little employment: can’t they use their money for better purposes? If the Greek shipping magnates don’t help the Greek government to reduce their debts, they should at least help to lighten the lives of the Greek people and, for example, offer free fares to the islands where life, in comparison with the city, is easier, cooler and better.

(with 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

Don QuiLesvos fighting Windmills

(wind turbines in the West of Lesvos)

How many islands does Greece have? According to Wikipedia there are between 1200 and 6000, depending on what size of landmass you start counting. Between 166 and 227 islands are inhabited; only 78 of them with more than 100 inhabitants. So my question is: why should they plan an enormous windfarm on the islands of Lesvos, Chios and Lemnos, which are famous for their nature and still not spoilt by mass tourism? Why not place such a project on an uninhabited island. By my reckoning there is a large choice of islands where probably only goats and sheep graze.

I am an advocate of green energy and I do strongly believe that wind, sun and thermal energy can contribute to the Greek economy. And I have to confess that I don’t dislike too much the huge solar panels in the area of Skalochori which turn like UFOs with the sun’s direction; I even like the flap-flap-sound of the handful of wind turbines in the Andissa area. I think that we have to make serious efforts to get rid of our dependency on oil, and nuclear energy is no option at all.

But I wonder if anyone will be happy with the 153 huge wind turbines that the Spanish firm Iberdrola wants to install in the west of Lesvos. Is that not a little too much? And imagine: 400 wind turbines on the even smaller island of Lemnos!

Lesvos Birding is voicing its concerns about this project. To create such a park, roads need to be built (requiring earth taken from the mountains) and mountain tops need to flattened to place the turbines – all of this placing protected birds in danger. Well, I wonder if there is anywhere in Greece, where installing wind turbines will not affect the habitat of birds, but I must admit that Steve Dudley of Lesvos Birding is right on many points: see his blog Lesvos Birding Proposed windmills on Lesvos.

Not only will the wind turbines be flapping on mountaintops, there will also be a pipeline going straight across the western part of the island, collecting energy from Chios and Lemnos and transporting it to the mainland. I can’t imagine that this pipeline will be as polluting or create risk of ecological disasters as happens with the oil pipelines in Russia or Africa. But the island itself will not benefit from these round sweeping windmills; it will not get any of its own energy. Whilst producing all this green energy, Lesvos has to continue to pollute with its fuel-driven electricity plant in Sarakina, while in the west a huge green energy trader may ruin the landscape and earn lots of money.

In other European countries you can buy a wind turbine yourself and you have free energy. When planning it right with a group of people you may even have a surplus of energy to sell back to an energy company. Why shouldn’t all Lesvorian households receive free or discounted energy from this investor, who – let’s be honest – will change dramatically the landscape in the west? As long as they work the turbines will be the property of the company, but once they are discarded, the turbines cease to be the company’s responsibility and will remain in the landscape (it is said that they will function for about 25 years). So, in the future, tourists will not only have to visit the Petrified Forest, but also the Discarded Windmill Forest. Above Agios Giorgos in the South, one can already admire the first discarded wind turbines.

Should there not be a law stipulating that any developer that builds must provide money to the municipality to help clear up when the building is discarded (think of all those abandoned greenhouses.)

Iberdrola is one of Spain’s leading energy companies and it ranks in the worldwide top 5 of green energy companies. They bought the leading Greek company of wind energy Rokas in 2009. It is sure that this multinational is driven by business and not the desire to save a poor country. Their projects will not provide many local jobs; not many people are needed to maintain those wind turbines. At Andissa there are already some windmills from the firm Elltech Terpandros WP SA. Between the monastery Moni Ypsilou and Sigri the Greek company PPCR has 9 wind turbines and 3 around Skalachori. That makes, together with Iberdrola, 3 companies fighting for the wind of Lesvos. PPCR also will start in the autumn with a project for thermal energy. I have no idea who owns those solar panels that seem to have shot out of the earth like mushrooms around Skalachori; but I do know that our electricity bills, just like in the rest of Greece, gets higher and higher.

I do understand that huge investments have to be made if we want to reduce oil consumption. And I do understand that the constantly growing world population that uses more and more energy makes a victim of nature. But why offer islands with nature-tourism to a foreign company so that they can earn money? Greece has so many other islands that she could better exploit: leave the bigger islands for the tourists and rent the uninhabited islands to these developers. If they find people to work on oilrigs in the sea, then for sure they will find people to maintain the turbines on uninhabited islands.

More information:
Rokas and the Gigantic Wind Farm

Here a document from Rokas; they promise to solve the energy problems on the islands and help the inhabitants with a less high bill: will this be true? They can increase the CO2 emissions, but nowhere do they speak about the impact on the landscape and its people when building such a huge park of windmills: Aegean Interconnecting Project

Big Question Mark over Iberdrola Greek investment

You’d like to comment: see the addresses below the blog on Lesvos birding

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2012

Almost Greek

My culinary career might have started in Paris where I discovered that eating is not only filling your stomach, but also a social event. Not that I really learned to cook in those years. The worst dinner I ever served to friends was in Paris, when I decided to treat my friends to a real traditional Dutch green pea soup. I had no idea how to make the soup; so I emptied some tins of green peas into a pan, mixed them with some meat and I might even have added some celery and voilá, the soup was ready. In those times I had no idea that it should have been made with dried peas and when I tasted the soup with its sweet flavour of tinned peas, I decided to say nothing and presented the soup to my friends as a traditional Dutch dish. They all ate in silence, not daring to insult me and I have wondered ever since how they managed to come back to my house for dinner, knowing that I was such a lousy cook. My dog, who normally ate everything including chilli peppers, refused to eat the huge amount of leftovers, even though there were sausages in it.

Returning to Amsterdam, I had a friend who taught me that cooking was relaxing and so I got a better feeling for cooking. It was at this time that I started afresh cooking for my friends and this time I was more successful than in Paris.

I felt like Alice in Wonderland upon coming to Lesvos and discovering the vegetables and fruit coming straight from the land into the kitchen. Fruit and vegetables were not only fresh, they also came in an abundance that I did not know. Those first years I really had to struggle with buckets of tomatoes and apricots that our neighbour gave us and as a real Dutch woman, no fruit or tomato was to be wasted. There is this Dutch advertisement where you see some women peeling endless heaps of shrimps. Then one of them looks out of the window, to the sea and she gets a scare: approaching from the horizon is a large fleet of fishing boats, bringing more and more shrimps. Well, asking a Greek in the summer for one pepper, may provoke the same scenario: Greeks are so generous in their giving that you never get one but end up with kilo’s of them.

The abundance and the freshness of most of the products here on the island, set me up to do more cooking and to be more creative with the Greek products. I quickly got bored of eating every day the same dish, so I had to try other ways to get an aubergine transformed in something different than a moussaka, or a courgette prepared other than as fried slices.

And then there were all those products with which I was not familiar. Take a fig, which in Holland costs a lot of money and here in Greece you just can collect them from the trees. Or the capers to be collected from near the beaches. Or the chorta and wild asparagus, or the lovely goat cheeses available all over the island.

Greece is a Land of Plenty. Its people and its nature are so generous that it is hard not to turn into a cook. My cooking for friends has resulted in this book with recipes I use to make for dinners and lunches.

I know that there are cookbooks full of splendid photographs, but they always look so serious and their recipes too beautiful to try. To compliment the spirit for cooking, which must be light, I invited my Dutch friend Sylvia Weve to make the illustrations. I am honoured she found the time to read my recipes and the stories around the products and became inspired to make the lovely and entertaining drawings for the book. Although I am very nervous to see my recipes printed in a book, with the memory of my worst dinner-ever in Paris still in mind; I am proud to present you a book that I hope will inspire you all to do more cooking with the ingredients Greece provides so abundantly.

You can order the book through internet: Website: www.smitaki.nl
In a week or so the books will arrive at Lesvos and will be for sale in different shops.

Title: Almost Greek
Subtitle: Cooking with Greek ingredients
Pages: 144
Publisher/Editor: Smitaki, Amsterdam (Netherlands) 2012
Translation: Julie Smit, Mary Staples, Jenifer Giannakou
ISBN/EAN: 978-90-816501-3-7

The spiritual Lesvos

Lesvos, which in Ottoman times was called the green garden of the Aegean, has more than sea, sun and sea grass to make sure that you have a healthy holiday. Many people agree that the island radiates a spiritual energy because of its hot springs and magic nature. The island has been the native ground of many a poet, writer and painter; the poet Sappho ¬– the best known of them. Most work of Sappho, who lived around the sixth century BC, has not survived, but her fame has. However it’s a guess how she really lived. Some historians think she led a school for girls, where they were taught poetry, music and dancing. School or not, she must have had a circle of admirers around her, to whom she taught her art, as was common for all famous people in ancient Greece.

In those times there was no mass tourism, only small numbers of travellers, not enough to fill a small school (although centuries later Lesvos became a popular tourist resort for the Romans). Were Sappho to live in our times, she would probably start a school to teach her art and this school would grow into a famous institute for well being. Praising life and people, she might well become a famous Greek guru. Somewhat like German Robert Betz, who today is fast becoming a rich man – thanks to his self developed transformation-therapy based on scientific and spiritual knowledge.

Robert Betz has chosen Lesvos as the ultimate holiday destination for his clients/ followers who are brought by the planeload to this energetic island, which is great for the island whose economy is declining quickly due to the crisis. Nowadays when going out for dinner you risk being confronted with a terrace full of Robert Betz people. Each night they go out to eat in a group of about twenty people, their exuberant presence ensuring that you will not be able to have a normal table conversation.

Robert Betz is smart because besides his therapies and books, he also sells native island products: olive oil and salt from the “island of love”. And this is how Robert Betz is becoming the new benefactor of the north of the island.

One way or another this island radiates positive energy and this has been long known to other spiritual people, who have organized seminars and classes in a more modest ways, that better suit the island and does not bother other people.

As example – famous in international yoga-circles, Angela Farmer and Victor van Kooten who set up their school many years ago in Eftalou, where they teach their unique yoga classes when they are not travelling the world spreading their knowledge.

Also, Ursula Hasenburg and Irene Asbach who for years, in the beautiful Milelja Island garden , have been holding classes like dancing, mandala painting, aqua therapy, etc.

You do not have to follow any of these classes to feel happy. Just walking on the island will be a revelation and give you a refreshing look inwards. There are various walking guides that might be of a help, like On foot. Circular walks of Lesvos.

There are many more people who contribute to the wellbeing of tourists: guides who will take you on a walk through nature and its flowers and herbs and tell you plenty of stories; others can steer you on a jeep safari across exciting dirt tracks, through wonderful forests, to breath-taking views and sleepy villages or who walk with you through Molyvos and tell you about its amazing history.

There are so many possibilities that you often don’t know what to choose. Next week however you will be presented with many of these possibilities: Moving in Molyvos is a three days festival – taking place from June 7 until 9 – intended to help promote the tourism in Molyvos. The rich program offers a sampling of the different tourist activities offered by various small independent operators around Molyvos, ranging from nature walks, folk dancing, oriental belly dancing, nia and tai chi, to yoga and exhibitions of the works of local artists.

The program is centered on the well being of the tourists and offers a colourful view of what is on offer in this small tourist town in the North of Lesvos (apart from the programs offered by the main tourist operators). No way can you say that this holiday destination is boring!

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2012

Sea grass

(Photo from internet)

It’s mainly the media that makes mischief about the situation in these insecure times. Talk is only about the dark clouds threatening Europe and especially Greece. One specialist after the other is brought into the footlights to tell us what will be good for Greece – every day another opinion. Financial experts calculate how much Greece’s bankruptcy will cost us, although they forget to mention what it will cost the Greeks.

The Greeks who were deceived by their politicians, who were misled by international bankers were presented a huge European cream-cake, from which they ate, only now to hear that they should not have eaten from it. The Greeks, painted by the media as lazy and profiteers, are sad because of all the criticism, the deception and the economics and have lost all faith in both their own country and that of Europe.

I will not write any more about these sad times because the media is all over it. I prefer to look further than the crisis and I think it better not to become downcast but to look very far ahead, to new horizons.

I think that Greece has enough potential to change into a healthy member of Europe. The country is one big green energy bomb: sun, wind and thermal springs and everybody knows that these are the ingredients for the energy of the future. And then there is another product that has been forgotten a little in this country and that does not appear on the list of well known export products like feta, ouzo and olive oil – seaweed.

The success story of the street vendor Paul Efmorfidis started years ago in Athens when a Dutch guy asked him where he could buy a mattress. Last year Paul Efmorfidis opened his umpteenth shop on Mercer Street, Soho in New York. Coco-Mat sells mattresses which amongst other things are filled with seaweed, and is so successful that they have shops all over the world.

I have been used to visiting sandy beaches and I thought that beaches with seaweed were a nuisance. But I have learned that lying down to catch some sun on those soft heaps of seaweed is rather comfortable. So, I imagine that sleeping on a mattress of seaweed makes you sleep wonderfully, as seaweed is not only soft, but also very healthy.

Asia has the biggest culinary consumption of seaweed: in various countries different sorts of seaweed are served in salads or in combination with fish. Recently the Thai teenager Chen Jingwen became a millionaire with his business Tao Kae Noi by selling nori-snacks.

In Europe seaweed consumption is not yet that popular. The ancient Greeks, like the Romans, used seaweed in drugs and for animal food. The Irish also harvested seaweed for animal food and for manure. Seaweed is still similarly used, although different cooks have predicted that soon seaweed will be the newest culinary fashion in Europe and in Holland more and more shops now do sell seaweed.

Seaweed in Greek shops still remains unknown, even though it grows in the ‘backgardens’ of most Greeks. The Thalasso-institutes in Greece are also mostly unknown. Thalassotherapy is based on a variety of seaweed cures, going from seaweed baths to seaweed masks.

Seaweed contains amongst others iodine and contributes to softening the skin, renewing skin cells, to a faster metabolism and dissolving of fats, so it has even been advertised as a way to slenderize.

Here on the island you can find masses of seaweed. Some people do use it as manure: they collect it in the autumn, leave the winter rains to wash the salt out and in spring have a fantastic manure for the garden. I intend to fill up a hot bath with seaweed: why should I go to a spa for this? I’ll just step into a hot bath with seaweed, drop some of the weed on my face as a mask and hope that all those healthy substances contained by the seaweed will enter my pores.

Now that the temperature is on the rise again, each day on the beach I will lie down for an hour on a seaweed bed for free. Although I must admit that I am now very curious how a Coco-mat mattress will feel.

And next I have to produce some seaweed snacks, although I am afraid that here I still have some study to do – because I have a feeling that you can’t just throw just-harvested seaweed immediately into a frying pan.

And there is even another use for seaweed: it can be used as a biomass to create energy; which means that Greece not only has plenty of wind, sun and thermal energy, but could also have seaweed energy.

I do hope that not all the young Greeks will leave their country, but that some will realize how many possibilities their beautiful country has and take their chances. I do hope that these success stories of a street- vendor of jewellery in the Plaka growing into the owner of the most beautiful mattresses shop of New York and the Thai kid who became a millionaire by selling seaweed snacks will stimulate the hope that Greece will soon recover from its crisis.

And for the tourists who stay away from Greece, they will miss a lot. The word thalasso comes from the Greek goddess Thalassa, which also means sea in Greek. Even though there’s a lack of money in Greece now, they still have plenty of sun, sea and seaweed: a base for a healthy holiday, where you can make your own thalassatherapy.

(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