Oct 29 – Mytilini (Lesbos), Greece

back in Greece

Weather – 15º, some rain, but mostly

Taxiarchis monestery

when we were on the bus

Steps – 7,438

Mytilene (pop. 60,000) is the capital and main port of the Greek island of Lesbos (pop. 84,000). We first visited in 2008 when we toured an ouzo factory.

The ship didn’t arrive until 11, so we thought we’d have a morning to laze…nope. We were invited to a breakfast for frequent Regent passengers. It was nice, but nothing is better than lazing in bed, then taking the few steps to the balcony for a morning of blogging and reading.

chocolate fountain for breakfast

After breakfast we booked a cruise for Christmas 2027. This will be on Regent’s newest ship which will be exciting. As usual, we booked the lowest category of room – there are rooms much bigger and that come with a butler, but about half of the rooms are more or less the same size (about 350 sq feet) but have different locations on the ship, which is what impacts category and cost.

Taxiarchis monestery

We don’t care one bit about location...much, we don’t want to be under any public area…no restaurant, no bar, no pool…only other rooms, public spaces tend to be loud. The ship location that impacts room category is proximity to the

Taxiarchis monestery

centre of the ship on a higher floor, so as rooms are
closer to the middle of the ship and to the top decks the category and cost increases. An increase in category means more $$$. The room we
chose is at the back on the lowers floor. However…location on the ship can sometimes affect balcony size, the room we chose is a G category, which is second from the bottom category, but it seems to have a GIANT balcony! Like 4 times the size of balconies we are used to on the older Regent ships and double or triple what we have now.

Greek granny polishing St. Michael glass

We feel like this will be figured out and will eventually be categorized higher, but we are locked in. We experienced this phenomenon before on Regent…a large balcony off the back of the ship (bliss) that was a basic room but was eventually categorized to a penthouse.

so many cats

Mitilini is a tender port – when the ship anchors in the harbour and small boats ‘tender’ us to shore. This is always a pain – it was charming and exciting the first few times we did it and can be when you aren’t with a group trying to get to an excursion. Today we were trying to get to an excursion. Tendering is a whole lot of sit around and wait in the theatre (the usual excursion meeting point) until there is an available tender.

Loukoumades 

This is where I think Regent fails a bit. We were supposed to anchor at 11, and tours were supposed to start going out at 1120. Obviously, they know how long it takes to start the tender operations, but people who were supposed to leaving the ship at 1120, didn’t until closer to noon. We were supposed to meet at 1155 and didn’t leave until about 1230.

St Raphael monestery

This doesn’t affect the excursion at all, a Regent excursion that is. Independent excursions are another matter, but we never do those. No Regent (or other cruise line for that matter) excursion will ever, ever not get you back to the ship and if something happens like a bus breaks down (been there!) the ship will never leave without you.

St Raphael monestery

We visited 2 monasteries and one taverna today. Travelling between all three took us all over the island of Lesbos. It was a perfect mix of seeing cultural sites, tasting local flavours, seeing the landscape, and how people live.

Of course we were with a guide, Mimi today, who told us many things at the sites and on the bus. I occasionally hear people moan about how much talking the guide did, or how the guide should have said less…PARDON ME!?! How else are you going to learn about where you are you ding-dong?!? I have never once thought a guide should have said less – sheesh!

St Raphael alter with hanging lights

Our first visit was to the fortress-like monastery of Taxiarchis (Greek for archangel or commander), dating back to

where 12 yr old saint Irene died

the 10^th century. St Michael the Archangel and St Gabriel are the patrons. It was interesting to hear Mimi tell us about the offerings people make of sliver items that have been used to cover a life size (of bigger) image of St Michael. Apparently in the Orthodox religion images aren’t to be 3D, so none of the iconography are sculptures. Exceptions can be made of course, like the one of St. Michael here, which is mostly flat – a relief image.

The church walls and ceiling was completely covered with images of saints. No photos were allowed in the church, but they have a great web site if you want to check it out. https://www.taxiarhismantamadou.gr/

St Michael and St Gabriel must also be the patrons saints of cats…they rule this place!

Lesbos landscape

We had time for a snack of Loukoumades - Tim-Bit sized, deep-fried dough balls that are crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and soaked in hot honey syrup. These can be with or without chocolate drizzle…we had with. A plate of 8 were €4.

Then we drove about 30 minutes through narrow winding roads, along the coast, through tiny towns, past cow and sheep pastures. Cows and sheep aren’t roaming freely as they typically do here as there has been an outbreak of foot and mouth disease on Lesbos since March, the first occurrence in 25 years, so animals are kept with the same herds.

St Raphael monestery

We also saw the Lesbos refugee camp. Mimi didn’t give much information on the camp, but a quick google search doesn’t have much good to say. Not that any refugee camp is great, but this one seems particularly no-so-good.

The Saint Raphael monastery (12^th century) where we visited next, is a working monastery in so far as it has nuns living there. St Michael/ St Gabriel monastery was operational for celebrations, but not a day to day working monastery.

meze and ouzo

Did you know (I didn’t) the difference between a convent and a monastery? According to the interwebs…”a monastery is a secluded place where people live apart from the world for quiet prayer, while a convent is a home for religious workers who go out into the local community to serve’.

There are many relics at the St Raphaeli monastery including 2 pieces of St Raphael’s skull, which is one of the reasons it is a pilgrimage site. I always find relics a bit creepy, but if that’s what worshipers like…good for them.

Sappho 

Lastly, we found ourselves at a taverna for meze and ouzo. The Meze was a meat ball, a deep-fried feta/chic pea ball, tomatoes, and a couple of unidentifiable dips. Everything was OK, I missed olives and cheese. Most of the people around us ate and drank very little. In fact, the woman across from us didn’t even touch her ouzo, so we helped her out.

Mitilini waterfront

3 busses arriving back to the ship at a dock would be an ordeal, but 3 getting back onto a tender would be a zoo! We figured for our sanity we had to find someplace for a beer.

We wandered the town a bit and stopped for a Kea beer (€5 for a pint). The waterfront area is lined with bars and restaurants which at 5pm on a late October mid-week evening wasn’t exactly hopping, but I could see how it would later in the day and especially in summer. The captain was out for a walk at one point and stopped by for a chat.

We sat right by the Sappho (c. 620–550 BCE) sculpture. Mimi told us about her – she was a teacher of aristocratic women. She wrote poetry about the beauty of

beer and Sappho

women which let to her being the symbol of lesbian history and culture.

Mitilini by night

By the time we got back to the tender it was dark (one aspect of tendering that hasn’t lost its shine for me is tendering in the dark) and it wasn’t at all full – maybe 10 people including staff – so no ordeal at all. You know tendering operations are almost over when the shoreside supplies are on with you. The tender ride from Mitilini to the shore is about 10 minutes long, this is short, some places it can take up to half an hour.

the ship lit up. tendering back

ship's door open and ready for us

The rest of the evening was, predinner cocktail, dinner, Chris went to the casino, I went to the room. I read for about 30 seconds and passed out hard. These no nap days are killing me!