Turkey and Greek Islands

Cruising the Aegean

Lesbos

Sunrise

Wednesday, June 12, was a wonderful morning! I got up early, dressed without waking Judy, and got down to the Coffee Connection in time to catch the sunrise. We were sailing toward Mytilini, a town on the coast of the Lesbos, one of the Greek islands we’d not visited before. Eventually we anchored outside the port, where we had a beautiful view of the town, and an antique fort or castle on a sort of peninsula jutting out of the main part of the island. All shore visits will require a short ride by tender to reach land at the actual port. I noticed a smaller cruise ship docked inside the port. Helllenic Seaways. I wonder if that’s the line we were on in the 90s. That memory left home years ago.

Most of the day was very lazy, as it should have been. We checked out a few new places on board, finding out where the library was located first. We wanted to pick up materials to be ready for the trivia games that afternoon. Eventually we gravitated to the pool grill for lunch. There’s nothing like a burger and hot dog you don’t have to make yourself.

That afternoon I took the Highlights of Lesbos tour, which was not what I expected it to be. Somehow I thought we would go to more places on the island. As it turned out, I loved the coach ride through a good part of the island. There were olive trees for days. This was a wetter climate than the interior of Portugal, but the landscape reminded me very much of the area above the Douro. There were really old looking tree trunks everywhere.

Agiossa Street

We got to Agiossa, a small village or town near the foot of the tallest mountain on the island. The island is large enough that there are several cities and towns, with Mytilini being the largest. Agiossa appeared to me to be larger than a village, but still quite a small town by comparison to Mytilini. We walked the main street up hill maybe a quarter of a mile to see a church. Very touristy in terms of shops in that area, but the only people we saw were either locals or from our ship. According to our guide there might have been some from the other side of the island, which was closer to this place than Mytilini, where we docked. But we really weren’t concerned about that.

Agiossa Churchyard

We couldn’t follow the schedule and go into the church right away because a funeral was in progress. We did wander around the church yard and check out the restaurants and shops up in that area of the town. We weren’t a rowdy crowd by any means, but when the funeral ended and saw only four people were needed to carry out a child-sized coffin, you could have heard a pin drop.

Walking through the town, I saw several of the most amazing wisteria vines I’ve ever seen! One of them was in the church yard, on the wall next to the entrance from the street. There were others as well, with trunks up the wall and with limbs the size of my thighs suspended on cables, intertwined over the street. It was beautiful.

We had only a short time to go inside the church, because another funeral was to start soon. Knowing that calmed us down from our tourist frenzy to see everything — but only for a short while. The interior was striking in the dark sort of way I find common in many orthodox churches.

Mytilini, Church of Archangel Michael

Eventually we went back to the bus to return to Mytilini, where we rode up in the hills above the town and the port. We visited another church, this one dedicated to Archangel Michael. This was a newly built place dating from 1903. It’s a small building with a gorgeous interior. The ceiling painting and the interior of the dome were really striking.

I got back to the ship too late to participate in the trivia fun, but Judy had gone and enjoyed meeting some new friends. This had been a shipboard day for her. We enjoyed another evening of food and fun before signing off for the night.