Started slowly this morning, exercises with the double doors wide open, the sounds of the countryside & the seed pods of the tree next door swirling around in the morning breeze. The noise of barking dogs was prevalent as apparently the neighbour is caring for the strays but was overtaken by what sounded like a day spa soundtrack of tinkling bells or wind chimes. Upon investigation it turned out to be a flock of sheep with bells around their necks grazing the field next door. It was such a delightful site & sound, so rural yet unexpected.
After a cuppa with my book I emerged into the world to find a bag of lemons hanging on my door! Maria was painting one of the rooms & her MIL was cleaning a bathroom when I found them, no rest for them as they prep for a busy summer season ahead. I, however, am on holiday & so I wandered down to the foreshore for a little look around. After a small coffee I walked further along the cobbled road which runs parallel the the beach & sat in one of the Taverna to eat a delicious Greek salad (just a salad here 😆) & a small plate of pickled anchovies all soaked in olive oil which I sopped up with my bread. That’s my idea of a great meal, fresh, seasonal & clean.
Lunch lasted for a long time as I gazed out to sea & read my book. No-one cares how long you take here & the table is never cleared before you leave. The owners were very friendly & were happy to have a chat before I pushed off to wander further up the cobbled road. I came across a wisteria, which I smelled before I saw & as I stopped to take a pic I thought to myself I’d better get to Molyvos tomorrow to check out the street that I came all this way to see!
Πέτρα is a beautiful little town, full of quaint of buildings, cobbled streets & cats. The air is filled with the scent of orange blossom & life appears to move at a sensibly slower pace. There was a funeral taking place somewhere & lots of people in black were sitting in one of the bigger taverna’s as I passed through the back alleyway. Apart from the funeral party there are very few people around, just a handful of tourists & plenty of locals chatting in shop doorways & in the streets.
There are quite a few empty & abandoned buildings & I think COVID & the lack of revenue from tourism has made it hard for some businesses to survive here? However, some of the old buildings look like they have been vacant for years, with overgrown gardens, windows & doors missing or boarded up. Cats might be the only inhabitants in these places, there are certainly enough of them!
Returning to the apartment I found Maria still painting! She had just finished an inside wall & it looked great so she took a break & we went next door to tend to the oil lantern in the chapel of Anastasia. This tiny little chapel was built in the 1930’s by the owner of the property next door as a place of worship for Saint Anastasia Pharmacolytira. Each profession has a patron Saint & she is the Saint of pharmacology. A teacher of Christianity in the 3rd Century she was burned at the stake for being a martyr (from what I can understand).
Maria tends to the oil lamp when she is in residence & keeps the chapel tidy. It is open to the public but possibly not well known as it’s tucked away down a road to the apartments & behind a gate on someone’s private property. The lamp burns olive oil & there is a floating piece of cork sitting on the oil with part of a flower on the cork which Maria dries then soaks in olive oil before lighting as a wick. Stacked one inside another the wick can burn for hours & so only needs tending once a day.
As you can see it’s a tiny building & I would never have known it was there if Maria hadn’t shown me. Not sure how old the olive tree is but it lends a lovely rustic feel to the place & stepping inside is like walking into a little sanctuary of calm & cool.
After a cuppa together & the receipt of some fresh gifts from the garden I was unexpectedly given the chance to go to Molyvos to see the castle & wisteria alleyway 💜 Aris dropped us off at the castle of Molyvos (or Mithimna), one of the most well preserved castles in the Eastern Mediterranean. Constructed around the 13th Century, renovated in 1373 by the Genoese & again in 1462 by the Turks, the different styles of the stonework are a clear indication of the changes the building underwent throughout the centuries.
I will come & explore it further during opening hours but tonight we turned & headed down the hill through Mithymna village to the bottom of the hill & dinner. There are some very old houses lining the road down to the sea & they are under protection orders which ensures that any renovations are carried out in a way that maintains the character & history of the area. Colours are confined to reds & greens & the stonework in some places has been skilfully repointed to ensure its preservation. The corner of this building reflects how skilful the early builders were & how lovingly restoration has been carried out in a way that maintains it’s original character.
And then we came upon it, the most beautiful alleyway in the world! Photos cannot do it justice. Before you see it the smell greets you & as you round the corner all your eyes are assaulted with a mass of purple. Umbels of flowers trailing over a trellis, tumbling over each other, littering the ground with purple blossoms, like a carpet of purple snow. It goes on for ever & the cobbles underfoot make it hazardous to walk when your eyes are cast upwards!
Mithymna is a feast for the senses. Everywhere you look there is something beautiful to see. Green fields, old houses, wisteria, cobbled streets, red roofs, beautiful stonework & the trunks of the wisteria, so old & gnarled, they’re like something out of a fairytale. Reaching the bottom of the street Maria stopped to tell me about this old graveyard that she was lucky enough to assist in uncovering when she was 15 years old. It’s all overgrown again now but you can clearly see tombs emerging from the ruins & the stone walls are keyed together in such a way that they are near impossible to destroy.
Dinner was a crepe eaten on the waterfront & as we left I snapped this pic of the castle lit up as the last light of the day faded on this quaint & peaceful village. I will be coming back again, I have to eat fish in the tavern on the waterfront & I want to explore a bit more, particularly the castle. Not sure what tomorrow has in store but it can’t fail to be enjoyable in this soft, peaceful rural seafront setting…what a lucky girl I am 🩵
