For me, the highlight was NOT the places we visited. Lesvos is a very quiet, peaceful place with few sites to visit. We stopped at two monasteries, the first one dedicated to the Archangel Raphael. The second monastery houses a famous icon of Archangel Michael. Both of these settings were lovely, elaborately decorated, with many icons and statues, burning candles, fresh flowers, and a pulpit. There were many visitors inside both churches, both locals and tourists. Many people stepped up to the glass encased icons and kissed the glass. Lots of greasy lip marks sorta spoiled the view!! However, it seemed quite meaningful to them so that's what mattered. Evidently it was some sort of a holiday for the community - naming day for Raphael. Everyone in the surrounding communities went to the monastery today to pay tribute to Raphael. When we were driving down the hill, away from the monastery, there was a solid stream of traffic driving up the hill. Our guide told us that this was people getting off work and driving straight up to the church.
The absolute highlight of the tour for me was the landscape. I really want to paint a picture since I loved it so much. I'll describe it in layers. First, the land is made up of lots of gently rolling hills connected by shallow valleys. Tiny streams of crystal clear water meander through the valleys. There are various sizes of river rocks heavily dotting the landscape. Many are fairly small but some of them are bigger, probably about 2x3 feet. Many of the rocks are softly but completely covered with beautiful green ground cover with tiny, brightly colored wild flowers growing out of it. They were red, yellow, white and purple. The next layer was tall wild grass which swayed gently with the light breeze. A little bit higher there were lush green shrubs. In the midst of all this beauty, there were lots and lots of olive trees as well as various fruit trees. Our guide informed us there are 11 million olive trees growing on the island which produce 47 tons of olives annually. Finally, to cap off the magnificent beauty, as we drove around the island we looked own at the absolutely exquisite color of the Aegeon Sea. It was such a beautiful clear shade of light blue. We could look out from the bus and actually see the rocks on the bottom of the sea nearby the shore. Their narrow beaches are covered with pebbles and small rocks but it is an absolutely beautiful place.
Our final stop of the day was at a local taverna where many of our group indulged in the island's traditional alcoholic drink, Ouzo, which has a strong taste of black licorice. They also served us a small plate of tapas so we would have food as we drank :) They produce different strengths of ouzo, 38%, 42% and 48%. They said they were being kind to us by serving us the "light" version, 38%. I took a very small sip and nearly gagged. It burned and tasted terrible. However, Bob really liked it so he drank his glass and my glass as well Let's just say we had many happy passengers by the time we left the taverna. I just enjoyed sitting outside on the patio and watching the gorgeous shoreline. It was a lovely way to end our day on this charming island. Tomorrow we arrive in Athens, Greece where the environment is expected to be total chaos. Hoping to see the Acropolis and Parthenon.
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