North by northwest

On our first full day in Skala Eressos, Lucy and I hung out on deckchairs all day at the private end of the beach:


It is a topless sort of place, but that was easy enough to get used to. So, we just relaxed on the shore with occasional forays into the village to buy Mythos beer (E1 a litre), fresh fruit and kebabs.

We had plans to splash out on our first festival event – an open air jazz concert in the village gardens. But, everything here is on Mediterranean time and, at the hour when the concert would have been starting up (10pm), my beloved and I were fast asleep after aforementioned hard day’s slog in the sunshine.

In contrast, the next day was action stations.

After a minor panic over appearing to have run out of money (damn useless UK banks), Lucy and I decided it was time to see more of the island. We headed to the 'city' of Molyvos, in northern Lesbos:



It is indeed a cute place. We decided to head uphill to the castle and a view of Turkey. It was closed for renovations, but Captain Wheeler turned rebel and lead me over some broken fencework at the back. The view was pretty good:


After clambering down, we made the short drive to Eftalou and Lucy was baptised by the choppy waters of St Agnassious’ beach:


The water was refreshing, but the offshore wind was pretty bad, and the gravely beach not fun at all. So, we picked our way back across the stones and ducked into the tiny hot pool complex for a dip.

The hot spring has been here since ancient times and is supposed to cure rheumatism, sciatica, skin diseases and heart problems. The idea is to start with a swim in the ocean and then sit in the 45’ water until one can’t take it, then splash on the beach before again immersing oneself until it gets too hot etc etc. One must finish with a cold swim and not spend more than an hour in the spring altogether.

Not only was I massively too sunburnt to be near anything with the word 'hot' in the title, but I wasn’t that keen on sharing my water with those sorts of disorders. However, because she is made of much sterner stuff than I, Lucy loved it. This kind of masochism also seems to attract wrinkly and topless eastern Europeans; I had to wait a while before getting a picture without too many of them in it:


The time passed very pleasantly, but the approaching sunset meant we needed to leave so as not to get lost driving in the dark.

Early evening found us at a taverna on the beach (again), where we had the meal of the trip – first off was some lovely cocktails (again), then onto a dish of tuna and broadbeans for me, and a grilled red snapper for Lucy. We drank beer (again) and enjoyed ourselves (again) as the sun went down on a gorgeous sunset (again).

There's something fairly attractive about the Lesbian lifestyle...