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The Wild West
In the far west of Lesvos there is yet another completely different landscape.
Not as mountainous as the north or south - west of the hill town of Antissa
the highest point is a mere 512m - the volcanic landscape is almost treeless,
in contrast to the forests elsewhere. The road to Sigri follows the highest ground
until its final steep descent to the sea.
If you are driving the constantly changing views make it difficult to concentrate
on the winding road; this is one occasion when it is worth considering one
of the regular guided coach excursions from Molivos and Petra,
which visit the Petrified Forest, Sigri, and Skala Eressou, and may also,
on the return journey, call at the Monastery of Limonas near Kalloni.
The Petrified Forest
It is almost compulsory to visit the petrified forest at least once.
The park lies in a great natural amphitheatre, dropping away
to a river valley and the sea a few kilometres away.
Nearby, slightly incongruously, the ridge is dominated
by the turbines of Lesvos' largest wind farm.
Here are the fossilised remains of the surviving trees
of a dense forest, petrified as the result of
a massive volcanic explosion up to (depending on which account you believe)
twenty million years ago.
If you are a palaeontologist you will be happy
to spend all day here, and will probably want to go on to
the beautifully designed and laid out
Natural History Museum in Sigri,
which is devoted to the story of the forest.
Everyone else will probably be content to follow
the well marked trail round the specimens at the head
of the valley, and then admire the view with a drink
from the café.
Sigri
Sigri, 'where the road ends', (the title of an guide in English, available locally,
by regular visitor Roy Lawrance), is the westernmost village in Lesvos.
Situated in a bay sheltered by the offshore island of Nisiopi, which forms a
natural anchorage, it grew up as a Ottoman garrison town after
the original Greek inhabitants fled the invaders in 1452.
The large church of Agios Triada started life as a mosque, built late in
the Turkish period in 1870 and converted after the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.
The fortress on the headland is also Ottoman.
Though it appears much older, it was built in 1757, presumably the last
in a series of forts replacing the Venetian castle razed in 1452.
Skala Eresou
Eresos' main claim to fame is as the birthplace of the ancient poetess Sappho,
and Skala Eresou is now a place of pilgrimage for lesbian women worldwide,
to the great scandal and profit of the local population.
In fact Sappho's sexuality is in doubt: the original 'slander' was started
by Athenians scandalised by her organising a school for girls - unlike most of
the Greek states of the time, Lesvos educated girls
as well as boys - and involvement in politics: not according to most ancient
(and not so ancient) Greeks, how proper women should behave.
Then a mere six hundred years later the story was immortalised by the Roman poet Ovid.
However she was married. And legend on the Ionian island of Lefkada has her
throwing herself off a high sea-cliff there, committing suicide for love of a man.
For most visitors, Skala's chief attraction is the mile and a quarter
of long sandy beach, and the beach front tavernas in the village itself.
Away from the beach are the remains of the Byzantine basilica of Agios Andreas,
with a recently uncovered mosaic floor.
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