February 10 - The natural hotspot of Greece

(Jeepsafari on Lesvos)

Greece is the country of azure seas, clear blue skies, golden beaches and white temples. That is why, since ancient times, tourists have travelled from one archaeological treasure to the other. Then there came the period of island hopping, visiting as many islands as possible with only a backpack, the more history an island had, the more visitors it had. Tourists booking flights and hotel together came next. Those tourists spent the majority of their holiday on the beach. Nowadays tourists seem to be tired of hanging out at the seashore all day; they are becoming more active and want to adventure out into nature.

Lesvos has no world famous treasures, so tourism came pretty late and slowly. Maybe that is why the third biggest island of Greece has no big resorts and has not been exposed to the explosion of developers who, in just a few years, turned coasts and villages into the so-called ‘tourist paradises’. Lesvos is still mainly what it was: a paradise of nature. Of course all the sunbathers are more than welcome: the island has many beautiful and often deserted small beaches and a smaller number of larger beaches with tavernas like at Petra, Vatera, Skala Kalloni, Skala Eresos and Melinda. There is plenty beach pleasure to be found.

Lesvos is the Greek island famous for birdwatching, wild flowers and for its Petrified Forest and it is only now getting discovered by a larger group of tourists for hiking. The island still has its ancient network of roads, consisting of narrow paths called monopati, once used by travellers on donkey, and the wider roads paved with boulders called kalderimia. Many have disappeared, sometimes crushed beneath a new tarmac road but some still slink through quiet meadows and whispering forests, passing small churches and old villages, right through the island’s breathtaking nature.

Like elsewhere in Greece, on Lesvos the donkeys have been replaced by cars and many roads have been asphalted (or new roads have been built). This asphalt fever has slowed down so there are still some popular hiking roads – like the one going from Eftalou to Skala Sykaminia – left for the hikers and the one or two farmers and their pick-up trucks (and some tourists neglecting the orders of their car rental firms not too take the dirt roads). Tarmac roads connect most villages, although some of them have fallen into such a bad state they qualify as dirt roads again. Touring around the island provides great pleasure because the roads are quiet, the majority of other users tending to be flocks of sheep, wandering cows and donkeys. Car drivers who stop in the middle of the road in order to have a chat with a friend and birdwatchers with all their equipment form, along with the manholes, exciting distractions to keep you awake.

However not all the most beautiful areas are connected by tarmac and some can only to be visited by hikers or drivers with a 4Wdrive. If you really want to see the wilderness and are not a great walker, you had better rent a jeep or even better: book a jeep-safari. There is a risk of getting lost in the Lesvorian jungle, so a guide is no superfluous luxury. A guide will know which roads to take in order to see the most beautiful spots, to see wild horses, to help you climb to hidden little churches, to show you a waterfall or to present to you the fragile and sweet scent of the rare yellow Rodondendrons. You never know what you will encounter, but jeep-safaris are always full of surprises.

High on the list of excursions offered by all tourist offices are the traditional boat trips, daytrips to the Petrified Forest and other bus excursions. But there is more to do on the island. The new tourist office Pandora Travel offers, along with a number of different jeep safaris, hiking, kayaking, sailing, diving, climbing a waterfall or an expedition to find orchids. For people already tired of reading about all those activities, Pandora also offers coaching with horses, donkey trekking, watching the stars and photography, mosaic or cookery lessons.

It is clear that sunbathing for a whole day on the beach is ‘out’ and the new tourist trend is closer to nature: by foot or car hiking through nature, being creative with nature, outdoor sporting and learning what edible things nature offers. For parents who want their children to engage with nature they can book a family holiday at the micro farm and stay in a comfortable safari tent with a Greek farmer and his kids.

For decades Lesvos has not been a hotspot for holidaymakers: it has no important archaeological monuments, it’s not on the most popular route for the masses of island hoppers, it has no big hotels at a beach. But now that the desire for nature holidays is growing, I am sure that this island - still not spoilt by tourism - will soon become the natural hotspot of Greece.

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

© 2014 Smitaki

January 29 – An ode to Apollo

(Sunset in the Bay of Kalloni)

I love the winter light here on the island – the Bay of Kalloni in particular has lots of light changes and I think it is the best place to take photographs. The sea views elsewhere on the island can be equally attractive, like at Vatera when angry foam caps roll out of a green sea to attack the beach, their bright white colour detonating against a dark sky far behind it. And what about when bright sunrays shine through massive packs of clouds, illuminating the Lesvorian Mount Olympus or shower faraway rocks on the west coast with a mysterious light. Clouds are just like magic lanterns playing with the light.

The island has finally had some serious rain and during one of those rainy days – there were a few hours without rain – the clouds were so low in the mountains that there was no way to avoid them and you just drove into them. Fog on a busy highway is no fun, but here on the island the roads are quiet so you have a chance to enjoy a foggy mountain landscape: a fairytale landscape was created where trees seemed to float and the pink flowering almond trees became part of the clouds.

During the cloudless summers lots of tourists gather at strategic places to see the sun disappear into the sea. Those people should come in the winter: that is the time when you are regularly confronted with dramatic sunsets, when bright orange lights climb towards heaven and clouds colour red, painting the island with magic lights. Even a colourful rainbow cannot compete with that.

Clouds can take astonishing forms. Zeus also knew that. He created the cloud-nymph Nephele, in the form of his wife Hera, who had complained to him about the unwanted sexual advances of King Ixion. When Zeus sent the Hera ‘look-alike’ cloud Nephele into the sky King Ixion raped the cloud and the myths say that is how centaurs (creatures that were half human – half horse) were born.

There is another myth about this cloud-nymph Nephele. It tells the story of how, when she saw a beautiful palace, she climbed off her cloud, thus meeting King Athamas. They fell in love, married and had two children: Phrixus and Helle. Eventually Nephele became very homesick for her life in the clouds and she left her king and children. King Amathas then married Ino, a princess banned from Thebes.

As soon as Ino had her own children with Amanthas she began to hate Phrixus and Helle. When Amathas announced that Phrixus would be the next king, Ino created a famine and bribed the oracle of Delphi to say that the king had to sacrifice Phrixus in order to end the famine.

On the day of the execution Nephele came on her cloud to save her children. She put them on a golden goat that would fly them to the kingdom of Colchis where they would be received as royalty. During bad weather however Helle fell off the goat into the sea, which even today is called the Hellespont (the link between the sea of Marmara and the Aegean sea, also called the Dardanelles). Phrixus reached Colchis; he offered the goat to Zeus and gave the golden skin to the king, which brought him lots of wealth and power. This was the famous Golden Fleece that later on would be collected by Jason and his Argonauts.

Apollo was one of the many Olympian Gods and he had different tasks (and names). The Oracle of Delphi pronounced his prophesies, he was patron of music, poetry and healing, but at the same time he could distribute pestilence all over the world. He was also the god of light and the sun. And of course he had followers on Lesvos. A myth relates that when the head of Orpheus drifted on the shore of Lesvos at Andissa, the head was taken to a temple of Apollo where it became a popular oracle. I do not know if this temple was close to Andissa; as far as I know there were two temples dedicated to Apollo known on Lesvos: one in Klopedi (the remains can still be visited) and one on Lepetimnos (but this temple is only known from ancient documents).

It was a good location up on this mountain for a temple to Apollo: from its top you have a splendid view across the north of the island, you can look deep into Turkey and very far out to sea (on clear days you can even sea Mount Athos on the mainland) and from the top you have every possibility of experiencing magnificent sunsets. On this highest spot on Lesvos (Olympus is just one metre shorter) I can imagine that Apollo even today is still creating beautiful light-shows while playing with the clouds. He has the shadows of the clouds meandering over the mountain slopes, he has them cosily curling over his mountaintop, has them dancing around other mountains, gives them steam to create huge cauliflower shapes, chases them like volatile nymphs through the heavens, paints them in an ink-black colour in order to announce rain, gives them red, yellow and orange explosive colours in order to say goodbye to the sun or just turns them bright white and sends them off to shuffle like sheep through the sky in small formations.

The few tourists who dare to visit the island out of season become addicted to the Lesvorian winters – and with plenty of reason. In the winter the island is dependent on the mercy of the Gods, with all the pomp and circumstances that usually surrounds them.

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

© Smitaki 2014

January 15 – All roads lead to... Sigri!

(The Eftalou Boulevard)

Was it three or four years ago that the road in Eftalou was badly damaged by the winter storms? There was and still is no money to repair Eftalou Boulevard as I call it. It’s a big word for what is essentially just a dangerous street: half concrete with deep holes along the seawall and a willing future victim for the storms to come — if they do come this winter (apart from one ice-cold week in the middle of December, we have only had summery weather and the island is mostly dry).

The Eftalou Boulevard leads to the Hot Springs of Eftalou, where it becomes a dirt road, and then goes all the way over the mountains along the coast to Skala Sykaminia and it is no busy road. In the winter you can take endless strolls without seeing one car (or person) and in the summer, even on the part where only one car can pass, its dangerous state has never caused problems. So I don’t mind that the road has not been repaired; this way the fast driving devils have no other choice than to slow down.

For years there has been talk of a new road from Petra to Mytilini, the busiest road on the island (although nothing compared to roads around the large European cities: in winter, driving this road in the early evening you’d be lucky to see more cars than fingers on your hand). The intention is to make a road bypassing Kalloni. Villages like Stipsi and Skalochori have had enough of the ‘dense’ traffic through their narrow streets, of cars just missing the toes of the visitors of their cafenions. Those villages already made a bypass road, but Kalloni: no way! They enjoy the busy congestion, the frequent jam traffics and the danger of pedestrians being kicked off the pavements. It is said that it is the middle class who is against such a bypass. Imagine if you could no longer drive bumper to bumper through Kalloni, if you could no longer see what the shops had to offer and you if couldn’t get out of the car to shop. So up until now the new road from Mytilini has found a dead end in Kalloni. If you actually survive the hurdles of the second city of the island and you want to go on to Petra, you still have to cross a mountain range.

It may be that it will be difficult to find an easier way through the mountains between Kalloni and Petra. The existing road is okay, but when the salt vans or the tourist buses in high season dominate the road, it is no fun to drive up and down the mountains via the hundreds of sharp bends and curves. But as far as I know, nothing will change there. The road builders must be having a rough time: what to do next?

The municipality came up with a solution: a new road from Kalloni to Sigri. There is nothing wrong with the concrete road to Sigri. While it passes through several big villages like Filia, Skalochori, Vatoussa and Andissa you rarely meet other traffic. But somewhere they have found money to replace this perfectly good road, and they have already started building it.

Off course there are smaller villages than Sigri on the island, but this tiny white village that revived a little, thanks to the building of its castle in 1757, has in the summer only a few shops and restaurants open. Its having no cash dispenser or petrol station, are two things that have led to problems for people who do not know this. But it does have the beautiful Natural History Museum of the Lesvos Petrified Forest, but is this sufficient reason to build a new road in times of crisis?

Is this just about provision of work? Or is the road too dangerous for the buses transporting the tourists to the Petrified Forest? Has some official simply sniffed out money, some of which he can put into his pocket or has the Natural History Museum of Sigri asked for a new road?

Building in Greece, especially on this island, can simply be asking for trouble. When you dig into the ground in the north of the island, you could encounter ancient buildings and then the archaeological service might stop the building. Digging into the ground in the West might bring to light petrified trees and that is exactly what happened with the new Kalloni to Sigri road, which they started to build at Sigri. They found huge petrified sequoia trees, fruit trees, plants and petrified roots. These treasures now have to be secured by the Natural History Museum of Sigri before the building can continue.

There may be another reason for building this new road from Kalloni to Sigri. Doesn’t this road go through the area that the Spanish company Iberdrola wants to use to install an enormous windmill park? Is this not the area where they have to build some hundred kilometres of roads for the sole purpose of installing those wind turbines (see: No Windmill Park in a Geo Park!) 

Maybe, just like Don Quixote, I see ghosts on the road, but I do question the idea of building a new road in a very quiet area, when on the old road you barely pass other cars. There are other roads that more urgently need repair or replacement. So I do ask myself if priorities are well handled.

Here in the North - the most popular place for tourists - we wait for the new water route to Turkey. For years there were only rumours but now it finally seems it will happen: in the harbour of Petra the Customs House buildings are nearly ready and now we just have to wait for the customs officials and the boat. And of course the destination (it is said that last year they had a trial run, but nobody can tell me exactly where they went).

In a few years’ time you won’t recognize the island: the new road leading through the windmill park will bring you in no time to the Petrified Forest. Sigri will be the most popular bathing place of the island. The old road from Petra to Kalloni will be in decay and you’ll need to travel to Kalloni via Sigri. The, by then ‘mythical’, Eftalou Boulevard will be in the sea and the surviving hotels in Eftalou will be only open to walkers. The harbour of Petra will be a cosy and busy place with plenty of cafés, terraces and tourists wanting to go to Turkey and Turks visiting Lesvos. And Kalloni? Nobody will go there anymore because of the persistant and awful traffic jams.

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2014

January 3 – Ottoman treasures

(The dome of the hamam of Molyvos)

For about four and a half centuries the Turks ruled Lesvos. This domination has of course left its traces, despite the Lesvorian people doing a lot to get rid of them. In 1912 the island was freed from its Ottoman usurpers and more than a century later there remain few traces of the occupation.

In many little towns or villages on the island you will find Ottoman fountains: small and elegant stone constructions against a wall with a water tap. Also the castle of Sigri belongs to the Ottoman monuments of the island. The admiral of the Ottoman fleet Karabağlı Süleyman Pasa, ordered it built in 1757 in order to protect the region from pirates and to keep an eye on the maritime traffic. Nowadays this fortress does look a bit small but a century ago the view of this small village was still dominated by its castle and the mosque (see the photograph of Sigri from 1900), which was later transformed into the Agia Triada church, that can still be visited today. The village of Sigri that we now know exists thanks to the castle. In 1581 the village was totally deserted, to be filled anew with life when the castle was built.

Mytilini had several mosques: The Johan the Baptizer church (presumably built by the Genoese) was soon after the occupation transformed into a mosque named after Mehmed the Conqueror. This mosque was destroyed by an earthquake in 1867 and rebuilt as the Yeni Cami (Yeni mosque).

The Yali Cami, now a warehouse for vegetables and fruit, was built on the remains of an earlier  mosque built in 1738. The Vigla Cami, now known as the Saint Nicolas Church, was also a mosque rebuilt after the disastrous earthquake of 1867. Its minaret was torn down in 1929, like many other minarets on the island.

Was it just through laziness or some remaining respect for a house of God that four minarets still reach into the sky of the island? You will find them in Filia, Mesagros, Skalachori and in Parakila. The one in Parakila stands like a dusty rocket in an agrarian landscape, next to a ruin that used to be the mosque. It is a beautiful building of small bricks artfully put together. I am wondering how long it will remain standing, because it looks lost and fragile, with holes in its elegant forms.

Parakila, at the Gulf of Kalloni, is known for this minaret and an old bridge, just called Old Bridge but I could not find in which period it was built. There are not many tourists around in the winter so only a few people will realise that Parakila also is a region with lots of oranges. When you walk in the winter through the olive grows and fields down from the village, over the Old Bridge, along the minaret, colourful oranges will brightly greet you with a joyful welcome.

The other region on Lesvos known for its oranges is Thermi, a little above Mytilini, which is also known for its Ottoman history. In Loutropoli Thermi you will find maybe the biggest Ottoman monument of the island: the Sarlitza Palace. Commisioned by Hasan Mola Moustafa this luxurious thermal spa hotel was built in 1909 by French architects, but closed forty years later even though heads of states and other dignitaries were regular guests. Since then it has fallen into ruins and is a very popular place for photographers. Rumours keep on popping up that it might be restored, but until now the hotel and its thermal baths sink deeper and deeper into a ruinous state.

Next to the hotel however is another thermal bathhouse where you can still enjoy splashing around in mineral water: a century long tradition for people believing in its healing qualities. The Turkish brought their own tradition: the hamam, a place for cleaning. The thermal baths are known for their high temperatures, but the baths are in spaces that are clear. In the hamam you will find a steamy atmosphere, where you can relax after cleaning, shaving or having a massage. The normal water is heated by a fire and thus is a hamam not dependent from a hot spring.

The elegant buildings of a hamam are dominated by one or more domes, that have holes in an artful pattern to let the light come in and the steam go out. Several of such domes, resting on the old ruins, can still be find on the island: in Klapados, Sigri, Ypsolometopo, Molyvos and even in Parakila you could find a hamam. The one of Molyvos is to be restored, but the rebuilding takes ages and when it is finished you may even not be able to bathe, because it is said that it is going to be a museum. In Mytilini you had several hamams, from which the Carsi hamam has been restored, serving however as a cultural centre now. There is just one hamam on the island that has been restored into a modern centre for bathing and where you can be spoiled in Ottoman ways: in Mesagros, a village between Pappados and Skopelos. If you have never had a foamy soap massage you have a perfect reason to go to Mesagros.

Looking for traces of the Ottoman culture on the island may result in wonderful walks, like the one around Parakila with its bright coloured oranges. Lesvos has so many beautiful and historical places that even this new year will not allow you enough time to explore all of it. I wish you a very happy 2014, with lots of new challenges.

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

© Smitaki 2014

December 17: The Club of Love

(A divine landscape on Lesvos)

In ancient times, when the gods on Olympos still reigned over the Hellenic people, there was a god for everything: for love, commerce, war, the harvest, the army, wine, weather or whatever there was. Each god jealously guarded his own department, defending it against the trespass of any other god, leading to quarrels and even wars. The gods were then anything but nice to either their fellow gods or to human beings.

The Gods ruled with rods of iron and there was no place for charity. Although sometimes there was the odd god or one of his offspring who would take pity on humans. Prometheus, a son of Titan Iapetos (god of immortality) gave humans fire in order to defend them against the many violations of Zeus. He was soundly punished for that by being tethered to a mountain where an eagle ate his liver. Even worse, the liver regrew each night and so the eagle came each day.

The Greek poet Aeschylus visited this myth in one of his plays: Prometheus Bound. In this play the fettered Prometheus refused all help, because he knew something with which he could blackmail Zeus. Hermes, God of commerce and messenger of the Gods also tried to mediate on his behalf, but Prometheus did not want to tell the secret. The enraged Zeus gathered together all the Gods of the weather who caused such bad weather and natural disasters that Prometheus perished by falling into an abyss. 

But let us go back to the beginning of this play, when humans still lived in dark holes, always afraid of the fury of Zeus and his threats to destroy them. Prometheus was apparently a nice guy because he decided to help the people. He stole fire from the gods of Olympos and when presented with this phenomenon humans could better defend themselves and developed hope for the future. In the play this kind character of Prometheus was, for the first time, given the name philantropos, from which the word philantrophy comes. Charity in Greek is philantrophia (love [philos] and humanity [anthropos]), and so I suppose we could say that Prometheus is the God of charity and Greece the homeland of charity.

Greece is no longer a country awash with charity. Lots of inhabitants depend on charity but you cannot call the government a philantrophic one: most victims of this on-going crisis are the poor.

Poverty at Christmas is not funny. In December money is spent like water, lots of people are shopping for sweets and presents and others spend money on holidays or to visit family. But when you don’t have the money to do these things the festivity days are less joyfull.

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus, some celebrate it as a celebration of light, but Christmas also means days of forgiveness and charity. Look at all those big tearjerker Christmas movies where poor or unhappy people are presented with some hope for the future, just like when Prometheus gave the people a new future with the gift of fire.

There are hundreds of charity organisations to which you can give money. But I always say: Change the world, start with yourself and your own environment. In Molyvos there is a charity organisation called the syllogo i agape. It was set up in 1920 and started with helping the wounded soldiers in the Greek – Turkish war of 1919 – 1922. Since then its members, mostly village women, take care of the poor. In present day Molyvos some people still have no money for food or heating. And that is what they really need, because the cold has settled on the island and even though the sun shines a lot, causing beautiful clear days, they remain cold. And even though the moons milky-bright light illuminates the landscape there still are dark days around Christmas.

Let this Christmas bring lots of beautiful stories.

I wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2014

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

© Smitaki 2013

December 4 – The mystery of Saint Nicholas from Tzithra

(The Agios Nikolaos Church in Tzithra)

The winter has finally set in on the island: a cold wind now blows the fruit-fly ravaged olives, oranges and mandarins from the trees. Even the last quinces cannot resist the strong winds and are falling from their branches. In one way or another the remaining pomegranates have managed to stay longer on the trees, where they’ll hang as natural Christmas decorations until the end of the month or even longer.

The olive harvest which started early this year and has not been too big. The people now kneeling on the cold earth, gathering the olives from the nets must be adjusting their shawls and headgear and regretting that they didn’t start earlier in a time when the sun still made it possible to have a picnic at the end of the workday.

But, even in Greece, December can be a winter month. And now just as the activities for Christmas have started up, inclement Saint Nicholas-weather has invaded the island. In Holland Saint Nicholas warrants a major holiday, but even though Saint Nicholas came from neighbouring Turkey, in Greece he is only celebrated through his nameday as the patron saint of sailors and fishermen. If you want to know more, you can read about Saint Nicholas, this Holyman from Patara (once a Greek village, now belonging to Turkey) and also find a link to the Dutch who may have introduced Santa Claus in America.

It’s strange that Lesvos has so little affection for the saint who has rescued many seafarers from drowning and saved children from starvation. Even though the island has many big and small harbours and in the winter the main occupation of the men can be found at sea, you will only find three well-known Saint Nicholas churches (I am sure there will be lots more, but small churches, like the one in the harbour of Molyvos, but I doubt that somebody knows all churches on the island). One of them is in Petra, at the foot of the huge rock, upon which stands the famous Maria Glikofiloussa church. So, a Maria, together with a Nicholas watch over the people at sea. Although the church of Saint Nicholas is somewhat small, it is known for its old mural paintings, some of them as old as from the 16^th century.

A second Saint Nicholas church – the biggest of all three mentioned – is in Plomari. Built in 1847, it has a few nice icons and is regarded by the inhabitants as the most important church of their little city - which means that on the 6th of December public life there falls still because of the festivities for the name day of Saint Nicholas.

The third Saint Nicholas church can be found in the small village of Tzithra, a gathering of houses hidden in the greenery just below the town of Andissa. I wonder what this Saint Nicholas church is doing in a place relatively far from the sea (Tzithra is one of the few villages on the island without a sea view). The church is however mysterious. There is a mystery surrounding the enormous key that can open the church. I have been told that this key is kept by an old woman of the village (there are just a few inhabitants left), but each time I am in the village, this old lady is nowhere to be found. I have heard the same story from various people who have ventured out to Tzithra. In fact, I have never spoken to somebody who has managed to enter this holy church. So I don’t know anybody who can tell me if this church does indeed have a magnificent icon (or is it a fresco?) worth yet another visit to the village in order to hunt down the woman who keeps the key to the church. Maybe this is the beginning of a new myth: the one about the Saint Nicholas church that keeps its icon (or mural painting) a secret. Perhaps someone once was lucky enough to come across the woman with the key on the one occasion she was home; or maybe the key is just lost and no living soul cares about the interior of the church.

However that’s no reason not to visit this half deserted but picturesque village buried in the flowers of its abandoned wild gardens. You will find the road to Tzithra on the way from Vatoussa to Andissa, just a little further along from the road leading to Perivoli (a monastery which also has very beautiful frescoes, though its opening times depend on the mood of the monks who care for this now uninhabited monastery).

So the Saint Nicholas festivities are pretty local on Lesvos, but the Christmas festivities are starting up all over like upcoming Christmas markets. The one in Molyvos takes place on Sunday the 8^th of December. So right now there’s lots of baking, cooking and craftsworks going on, as well as the rehearsals for the fancy dances and special Christmas carols. And when the market day is over - like there will be no money for Christmas decorations in the streets, no Christmas tree on a central place and I bet that Santa Claus won’t show up - the village will be ready for  hibernation.

The dark days for Christmas have come: the woodstove purrs, the wind blows around the house, many a friend is getting ready to leave the island for brighter places, inhabitants are still filling the sacks with olives and others are already enjoying the new harvest, because the few olives that were harvested, have made a good quality of olive oil.

So there is plenty of time to unravel the Saint-Nicholas-mystery of the absent key-holder of the church of Tzithra. On December 6^th I will just have to go to the village, where - I suppose - according to tradition the church and Saint Nicholas will be honoured with flowers and other gifts. Surely, the church will be open then.

On the other hand: nothing is more beautiful than a mystery. Maybe the mystery of the Tzithra Saint-Nicholas, the church with its lost key, is more comforting than a cold winter’s day journey through a cold and bare landscape. Maybe I’d better stay home that day, next to my woodstove, dreaming about imaginative mural paintings of the saints who brought colours to our world.

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

© Smitaki 2012

November 20 – Hunting for treasures in Limonos

(Thyme)

Over the last weeks, especially during the weekends, the woods of Lesvos were teeming with mushroom hunters. Even on steep slopes of the pinewoods you saw earth upturned and mushrooms thrown away, probably because they were worm infested. Mushrooming seems to be the newest craze here on the island and I wonder if that’s because it has received publicity in the media, or whether it’s due to the magnificent weather — or is it the crisis that forces people back to nature.

An average Lesvorian only knows the pèperites (peppered milk cap; Lactarius piperatus) which grow mostly under the carpet of pine needles. They can be found in large numbers, they grow quite large and that’s why the island people cut them in pieces and then fry them. I don’t know any people who use mushrooms for medical purposes, but indeed some mushrooms have healing powers. And that has been known for a really long time: Ötzi, the iceman and the oldest European mummy, who was found in 1991 in the Italian Alps, was carrying some mushrooms with him. He lived in the copper Age, many thousands of years BC (5000 - 3300) and the tinder fungus he had with him probably served as a tool for making fire and it’s thought that the birch polypore he also carried was used as a medicine.

I didn’t realise that those leathery fungi, which mostly grow on tree trunks, could make a fire. When on the lookout for this family of fungus, it’s mostly the ox tongue (Fistulina hepatica), a thick and tasty mushroom to be baked like a steak, that I am searching.

According to the ancient Egyptians, mushrooms were food for royalty, and a

Hadith says that truffles were the manna that Allah sent to the Israeli people and that their juices are a medicine for the eyes. I know some Lesvorians who are sure that you can find this delicacy on the island, but I have never seen Lesvorian truffels, nor have I seen people looking for them, although the island still has plenty of oak trees, on whose roots truffles so like to grow.

Digging for treasures under oak trees? You don’t have to dig into the ground in order to find something valuable. The Belgian born Alain Touwaide, who works at the famous American Smithsonian Institute, is the scientific leader of the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions. This institute studies traditional medicines, originating in the Mediterranean, and especially the medicine practiced in Greece by the ancient wise men like Theophrastus, Aristotle and Dioscorides. Hippocrates, who also belongs to this list, said: “Be the food your medicine and your medicine the food”.

Touwaide studied all the books and papers these sages wrote, because all of them had something to say about the medicinal uses of herbs. Now Touwaide is looking for even more ancient papers containing descriptions of the old medical traditions in order to digitalize them and so preserve them for the future. The modern pharmaceutical industry is also learning from this old knowledge. And now we come to the treasure he found: in the beautiful library of the Limonos monastery near Kalloni he discovered many old scripts describing ancient and traditional ways to use herbs.

Touwaide believes that Lesvos can have a meaningful part in preserving the ancient ways of healing. This big island has a very rich assortment of herbs and many of the island people still believe in their healing powers. Looking for chorta (herbs and wild vegetables) is, on Lesvos, even more popular than mushroom hunting, especially in the winter when the new plants sprout from the earth.

Lesvos is mostly promoted as the island of Sappho, but it also is the island of

Theophrastus, known as the founder of biology; and Lesvos was the island chosen by Aristotle, as the preferred area for his studies written up in his famous book Historia animalium.

But here on the island, similarly to elsewhere in the world, it still remains easier to see a doctor and then the pharmacist than to go into nature looking for suitable healing herbs. Maybe the crisis is now making people return to natural herbs. Why take chemical pills for each small ailment, pills that could poison your liver or damage, who knows what, other parts in your body. I say: back to Nature that has plenty of natural remedies, back to the herbalist who has studied them, or back to the grandmothers who know the secrets of home remedies like cough syrup, calming herbal infusions, wild vegetables for when you have a puffy feeling or an ouzo for stomach pain.

Alain Touwaide is right in wanting this ancient knowledge to be preserved, afterall, in earlier times people fell ill and recovered thanks to the healing herbs. Even though modern medical science can heal more ailments than the traditional herbalists, the mighty pharmaceutical industry also destroys a lot and is far too expensive.

And Lesvos? That is still the home of biology, offering plenty: from precious papers in the monasteries to a multitude of mushrooms and herbs. A paradise that, maybe because of the crisis, is rediscovering its blessings.

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

© Smitaki 2013