First call, Mytilene
On such a short round trip, it’s important to hit the ground running and that’s exactly how it feels. We had a wonderful dinner last evening and didn’t bother to set our alarm this morning since our tour wasn’t until 11.30am. When we awoke, we were anchored off the Greek island of Lesbos.
It was a classic on board view. Just there on the horizon, about five miles away we’re told, is Turkey and presumably, the island of Bozcaada, where we were originally expecting to call. But something cropped up and a last minute change of itinerary had us heading for Lesbos instead, with a hasty change of tour plans.
First things first though. Breakfast! Slightly different arrangements for our favourite early morning spot but the old favourites are there and in no time at all, we were sitting out in the fresh air with Birchermuesli and blueberries!
A further treat was in store however, because today’s special was blintzes! Delicious.
It’s a while since we’ve been to a port where a tender was required, but that’s usually quite fun and having watched the small boats sail to and fro, we thought that we’d set off in good time to join our tour group on the pier.
The tenders are often captained by young officers, for whom I imagine this task is rather fun. The tenders are pretty nippy, very manouevrable in the water and they have other seamen to do all the physical work.
Once ashore, we wandered along the harbourfront and sat watching the world go by until it was time to meet our guide.
Opposite us was a small peninsula which I imagined had had one or two close encounters over the years as boats sailed through the narrow entrance to the harbour. Perhaps that’s the reason why we were dropped off around the corner?
If I say we didn’t really know what we were doing today, it sounds rather careless. But the last minute change of plan meant there was no real choice of tour beyond take it or leave it! We took it…and were happy to go with the flow! We began with a drive through the town of Mytilene, the largest place on the island, which is itself, the third largest island in Greece. It’s a pretty place with a lovely harbour and green hills surrounding it. We drove through smart residential areas and out into the olive groves, uphill all the way.
From the top of the hill we had a grand view of where we’d come from, including our lovely ship there in the bay. But of course, we hadn’t come to simply see that!
We had come to visit this splended Orthodox church, the Taxiarchis Major, dedicated to the Archangel Michael, identified (we learned) in orthodox tradition by his image being the second icon from the left. Who knew? Our guide Dina was terrific, delivering exactly the right balance of essential information and interesting facts.
She had already advised us of the need to dress appropriately, in particular removing hats.
I shall always remember this as the technicolour church however, for the minute we stepped inside we were greeted with the sight of rainbows. They were everywhere - I couldn’t work it out; were there prisms somewhere creating them, or was it some form of illumination?
The answer was in the windows. Each one of those highly coloured glass circles was creating a beam of brightly coloured light. It gave a really peculiar effect.
We would have missed that small, fascinating detail had Dina not pointed it out however. There, at the foot of one of the columns by the iconostasis was a flower arrangement and a pair of shoes. Actually, there were two pairs of shoes - the other pair is in the feature photograph for this blog post. They are there according to a peculiarly Lesbos tradition, associated with the Archangel Michael who is believed to make occasional visits during the night. Being an angel, he doesn’t have the power to walk, but by leaving a pair of shoes for him, he can move a little further. Dina added that the priest has confirmed that on occasion, he has noticed that the shoes have been worn…
Pondering that story, we took a last look around, admiring the silver lamps hanging all over the chuch, reflecting the light from the windows.
Of course, we couldn’t resist another look at the view as we left, on our way to wherever we were going next.
It was an equally interesting place too, but since the internet is not being cooperative, we have an early start tomorrow morning and we lose an hour tonight, forgive me if I tell you the rest of the story tomorrow (or the next day!) We are sailing to Istanbul right now, we’ve had an excellent Asian dinner in Pacific Rim this evening and possibly drank a little more sake than we intended! So, for now, we’ll just enjoy the journey to Agiasos.
