We plan a first visit to Lesvos in 2 weeks time. We are staying in Petra but plan to hire a car. Any suggestions about what not to miss?

www.lesvos.com. A Matt Barett's site. Possibly the best source of information from a true Lesvos lover. Although I visit regularly Lesvos since I have a beach house there, I do no think that I can beat Matt's site.

Mivvi (you MUST be a child of the 60s<BR><BR>If you email me I'll send you my trip report from last year. It's on her already but...<BR><BR><BR>[email protected]

we're thinking of spending time in Lesvos when we go back to Greece in Sept.... I have a few questions...<BR>Can you get to Turkey from Lesvos fairly easily?<BR>Does anyone know of a wonderful pensione in Eressa, close to the water, not too expensive? (we don't need luxuries, just a nice place to call home)<BR>Is there a better place to sink in roots for a few weeks than Eressa? We are looking for water, beach (naked preferrably!), walks, goat paths, tavernas that are more greek than european ( !!! been to a few islands before and found this to sadly be the case), places to stare at the sea and the the caiques, sipping a tsiporu or frappe, writing, idling, resting. A peaceful place.<BR>Any experiences?? Thanks!

Hi Eleanore - We too hope to visit Turkey when we go in May - on our return I will add details of how we travelled there

I have just sent Mivvi that document by email. If it doesn't arrrive let me know because I'm having some probs with the email just now.

I think (Skalla) Eressos is the only place that does nekkid swimming. I think it does a lot of same sex girl stuff too.

We stayed in Skalla Kallonis, about 20 miles up the coast, which give or take the nekkid stuff seems to meet your needs.

Email me and I'll send you the doc too.

I'm off to Crete from tomorrow night so if I don't hear before then, it will be after the 6th till you hear back from me

Thanks to you both, Mivvi and Sheila.... I've emailed Sheila re: Lesvos info and Mivvi, I look forward to your trip report when you return! Have a lovely, peaceful time.... I hope for a report about Turkey as well! Eleanore

Your title says Lesbos trip in May. Very different than Lesvos!

Actually, Lesbos and Lesvos are the same place. It's the transfer from the cyrillic into the Latin alphabet.

On the other hand it makes an interesting web search

Further to Sheila's last reply, it is quite common to find two (or even three) variations on the spelling of Greek place names, due to the transliteration of Greek characters into the English alphabet. Therefore Lesvos and Lesbos are the same place. To add to the confusion, many names of entirely different places are similar: eg Paros - Paxos, Antiparos - Antipaxos, Serifos - Sifnos.

We are now back from 2 weeks of 'wall to wall' sunshine in Petra. The island was beautiful and mostly quite unspoilt. We toured mainly in the north of the island and plan to go back to see the south side. Petra was a nice central location for us with easy access to Molyvos where you can spend hours just watching the world go by. We visited the hot springs at Eftalou and found such a mix of people there we stayed all day! The small fishing village of Skala Sycaminea was beautiful and the fish restaurants on the quay were wonderful. We spent a day on the bay of Kalloni and watched the birds there (we should have taken binoculars).

In the end we did not go to Turkey as the day would have been 16 hours long and having weighed up the options we decided not to go. The trip costs about 80 euros and would have begun and ended for us with a 2 hour trip over the mountains to Mitilni to catch the ferry. However, if you are ever in Samos the trip to Turkey to see Ephasus is well worth the effort.

The Women's Co-operative is well worth a visit in Petra. They are doing a wonderful job of raising the profile of women in Greece. The restaurant they run in the square has the best and most reasonable food with a view over the bay to watch the sunset. If you are travelling independently they will find you accommodation in very reasonably priced rooms. From the restaurants along the sea front in Petra, Molyvos and Anaxos the views of the sunset would rival anything in Santorini.

Just west of Petra you can find the small bay of Avlaki where Molyvos and it's medieval castle slowly being floodlit and the hillside village starting to light up as the sun goes down brought us back several times to eat at the Avlaki Taverna.