Mytilini is not a town. It's a city. But it is an amazing little city full of life and surprises and if you are someone with a long history in Greece it may actually remind you of Athens or Pireaus in the fifties.

Like other great cities Mytilini is built upon seven hills and is full of history. Mytilini is in fact one of the most culturally enlightened cities in Greece perhaps due to its proximity to the coast of Asia Minor where the ancient Greeks flourished until 1922 when they were forcefully evicted by the Turks. Many of these Greeks had property in Mytilini and many Mytilinians had businesses in Asia Minor. For this reason the museums are full of interesting remnants of the last three thousand years of history and the town itself contains monuments, houses, churches, schools and other buildings from the various historical periods. But it is the Mytilini of today that holds the most interest for many because it is a small and manageable city full of great restaurants, cafes, nightlife, lots of interesting shops and friendly, people.

When you arrive by boat at 7 in the morning it is quiet. The city spreads from the large harbor up into the hills and mountains behind it and is crowned by an enormous castle whose foundations were laid during the time of Justinian on the ruins of an even more ancient fortification. This castle is surrounded by a pine forest that reaches down to the shore and the public beach. In the summertime the castle is used for performances of traveling groups of musicians, theater, opera and music and art festivals. In fact it is one of the best places to hear a concert in Greece. The castle is well worth a trip and a walk around the promontory will give you a whole new perspective of the city because it is like being out in the wilderness with horses and donkeys grazing on the hills that lead up to the fort. If you continue to the back side of the city you will come to the old bordellos and the old harbor where there are more fortifications and ancient ruins.

The waterfront comes alive with traffic by 8 and stays that way until just after 1 pm when the stores close and everyone goes home for lunch and siesta. By early evening the city is alive again with activity. This is not your typical quiet Greek island village but it is certainly a very entertaining place. The main street is lined with cafes that seem to be full year round. For the rest of the island Mytilini is the big city. Smaller villages send their children here for high-school. Mytilini is also the home of the University of the Aegean. People come from all over the island to do their shopping since there are super-markets in the true sense of the word, with aisle after aisle of products, imported and domestic. There are cultural activities, concerts of all styles of music, basketball tournaments, an indoor swimming pool and of course the city is the center of island Government, not only for Lesvos but for Lemnos too.

The marketplace is one of the most active in Greece with shops of every variety and closed to automobile traffic while the stores are open. There is ample evidence of the plentiful fish in Lesvos waters and prices are low. When I arrive by ferry in the early morning I usually spend an hour or so wandering around, checking out the fish and buying sardeles pastes or pastourma (dried spiced beef-like pastrami) to bring as gifts to my friend Tryphon to serve with ouzo in his cafeneon on the far side of the island in the village of Vatousa. It is hard to imagine a more interesting way to spend a morning and the shops contain a variety of items that you won't find anywhere else and to me are more entertaining than a museum. If you require strong coffee to get you going go to the small traditional looking cafe right across the street from the yogurt shop (that has the best yogurt and rizogalo in the world). It is called the Musico Cafeneon and it is on the corner of Komninaki street. if you are just getting off the boat it is a great place to gather your thoughts and drink an espresso or two. The owner is a woman named Martina and she or one of her staff can answer any questions you have upon arrival. If you are staying in the city,day or night it is a great place to hang out. Otherwise the waterfront is full of cafes that sell all sorts of coffee drinks, snacks, breakfasts and entire meals and at night are full service bars. Day or night there are hundreds, maybe thousands of young people who hang out at these cafe-bars.

Be sure to stop in at the Matis Ouzo factory which is right in the agora (market) where it has been for a hundred years, making and bottling their award winning ouzo which is popular on Lesvos but unknown to most people off the island except for the most knowledgeable ouzo drinkers. It is located on a small street that connects Ermou Street to Archipelagos Street and the large square where the buses stop in front of the main harbor. There are other small ouzo factories right in town. Ouzo Kefi is made on Ermou Street towards the old port near the famous Ermis Ouzeri. Ouzo Veto is located right at the entrance of the ferry terminal just on the other side of the Blue Sea Hotel. The Association of Mytilene Distilleries (EPOM) ouzo distillary, makers of the popular Ouzo Mini is on the other side of the old harbor just beyond Pano Skala where they still make their ouzo the traditional way but if they offer tours of the plant they don't publicise them very well. That's OK. The smaller ouzo factories will be happy to see you and explain the process and sell you a few bottles as well. If you want a serious ouzo factory tour go to Barbajianis in Plomari.

Antique Shopping in Mytilini

On Ermou Street, the main shopping street of Mytilene, in the area of the old market (palia agora), there used to be several antique shops (paliatzidhika), of which only two now survive. The first is at Ermou 194 and is owned by a very pleasant fellow, Chrysostomos Psiroukis (mobile: +30-6944209848). His shop is full of bric-a-brac and interesting objects, with some small furnishings. Particularly nice is his collection of brass platters and cookware, most of which are tinned. (Over the years, we've greatly expanded our own collection by purchasing ones we like from Chrysostomos. Although we don't use them for cooking, they are beautiful objects to display and are also very useful for drying herbs, like oregano or lavender. His prices are very reasonable and bargaining is totally acceptable.)

Further down Ermou Street towards the old harbor and before you reach the Grand Mosque, there is another antique shop on the other side of the street. This is run by the woman who has the shoe store directly across the street from the antique shop. Her store is full of old furniture, as well as porcelain and other objects. However, her prices are more expensive than Chrysostomos's, but she also has a more varied selection.

Both shops are at the risk of disappearing like the rest of the antique shops in the old market, due to the gradual gentrification of the street. Both proprietors are not internet savvy, and claim that online shopping has greatly diminished their merchandise turnover. But walking down Ermou Street through the old market is worthwhile - the buildings are historic and beautiful, in addition to the many shops selling art, jewelry and hand-painted pottery - and towards the end of the street, there are several good places to eat in the row of restaurants along the old harbor's waterfront.

Eating in Mytilini

Mytilini is a city and a good sized one by Greek island standards. There are lots and lots of good places to eat because generally they are not cooking for tourists, trying to give visitors what they think they will want. The restaurants are for the locals who are here year round which is why when tourists who are only familiar with food from the popular islands in the Cyclades come here, they can't believe how good it is and how inexpensive it is. The main event is generally fish but there are loads and loads of restaurants that specialize in meat called psistarias and psitopoleios which serve grilled local beef, pork, and especially lamb and goat. Even the fish restaurants will serve paidaikia (lambchops), brizoles (beef and pork steaks), loukaniko (sausage), and some kind of souvlaki-shishkebab. There are fast food joints on the harbor road that serve gyro and souvlakia as well as ice-cream and sweet shops, and all the hip cafes on the waterfront serve food whether it is sandwiches or pastas and international dishes. There is even an Italian restaurant that serves pizza and pasta on Ermou Street on the way to the old harbor.

There is a line of fish tavernas on the far side of the harbor that cater to the tourists, many who arrive on the daily boat from Turkey, so the signs are written in Greek, English and Turkish and they even sell Efes and Yeni Raki from Turkey, along with the ouzo brands from Lesvos. restaurants like Tsimis o Xontros (Jimmy the Fat Man) are popular and even if you ask a local where to eat they will probably send you there where you will walk in and be invited to sit down by every waiter in every restaurant until you reach the end where the small boats are tied and turn around to do it again. Some of these restaurants are psistarias, grill houses specializing in meat, not fish. So if it is fish you want be sure that it is a fish restaurant you are sitting at. The fish is generally pretty good and Lesvos not being an island inundated by tourists, there is not much difference between the tourist restaurants and those that the locals eat at. Remember that they will try to sell you the most expensive fish, which compared to other islands is not that expensive. But if you want to eat fresh fish cheaply stick with the grilled sardines, mackeral, fried gavros (anchovies), kalamari (squid mostly frozen but so what?) and of course the sardeles pastes and gavros marinatos. In season shrimp is cheap and you can get a heaping plate full of them small and medium, fried so perfectly that you can eat the entire thing.

In my opinion the best restaurants are in the old harbor at the end of Ermou Street. You can find sardeles pastes in season at the four or five restaurants right on the sea. The Psaro-taverna Ourano is the oldest of these fish restaurants and is run by Panayotis and his family who immigrated to the island in 1922. They serve excellent fresh grilled fish and meats as well as ouzo mezedes including fried shrimp. Next door Karnayo is a cafe on one side and an ouzeri-psaro taverna on the other. Try their pastourmatiki, which is a bourekaki (stuffed-deepfried-bread) with pastourma and melted cheese. Rembetiko is the most popular of these restaurants and on weekends is usually full as is Refenes right next door. The first restaurant, called Dimos is also good, especially their sardeles pastes and stuffed zucchini flowers. We have eaten at all of these places and the food is very good and the atmosphere festive in the summer where because they face north get a nice breeze. For some quiet mezedes nearby but not on the sea cross the street and go to Kastro, a small ouzeri on Ermou Street. Kastro is run by a guy named Giorgos who is also a magician so after some delicious mezedes you may be entertained with some pretty impressive card tricks. Across the street is Ermis, which is the most famous ouzeri in Mytilini which has great mezedes and a large choice of ouzo. For a before or after dinner drink go to Fisheye, a swinging young people's bar right on the sea among the fish tavernas. A great working class taverna is in the area of Mytilini called Apano Skala which is the hill that overlooks the old harbor of Mytilini. It is called To Ouzeri tou Koutsomiti and it is at 25 Zalogykou Street.

If you drive out to the airport or you are there because you are going somewhere try Kalamies, a very nice Greek taverna which is popular with locals who are not going anywhere.

In the middle of the new harbor connected by a narrow causeway lined with fishing boats is a small cafe-ouzerie which is one of the finest places to sit, have an ouzo and a mezedes and watch the ships leave for Athens at sunset or the small ferries returning from Turkey or the comings and goings of sailboats and fishing boats. In the afternoon it is full of old fishermen, making lures as they drink their coffee or ouzo and in the evening it is full of people eating mezedes drinking ouzo, beer or soda and talking. It's a fine vantage point to watch the lights of the city come on as darkness approaches. Scattered throughout the city are cafeneons that serve ouzo and excellent mezedes. Which are the best? The most crowded ones of course so wander around til you hear loud voices and music and if you see a large number of tables and old men smoking and talking you are on the right track. If they are singing then you have stumbled upon some place special. Some of my favorite places in the city are the cafeneons and ouzeries that are hidden on back streets where afternoon parties are spontaneous. The people of Mytilini are intelligent, warm and generous who love good food and engaging conversation. Fueled by ouzo, a pleasant lunch can last until early evening and the people who hours before were strangers at the next table can begin to feel like blood brothers and soul-mates. As in any town or city in Greece or the world, it's not the buildings or the scenery that make a place special.
It's the people.

Exploring Mytilini

The city of Mytilini is a maze of small streets that defies drivers to find their way out once they have ventured in too deeply. Behind the town is the ancient harbor which used to be connected to the new harbor by a canal. Mytilini sits upon the site of the ancient city and traces of a shipyard, remains of the ancient agora and fragmentary sections of the Roman aqueduct are located at Apano Skala near the old harbor. There is also an ancient theater above Apano Skala. The neighborhood of Apano Skala was settled by Greek refugees from Asia Minor in 1922. Two story stone apartment buildings were built for them and most of them are still standing though many have been altered. The area of Pano Skala and the Old Harbor below get the north wind and seem to have a much nicer climate than the new harbor which is one reason why the locals eat in the above mentioned tavernas and the tourists eat on the other side. There are also the remains of old factories and warehouses that give this part of Mytilini a really cool industrial look, sort of inner-city-on-the-sea. To make it more interesting there are also ancient ruins, two old mosques and the old EPOM Ouzo factory in the neigborhood, which has a terrific view of the castle. If you have some time wander around Pano Skala and learn to recognize what the original refugee buildings looked like and then check out the ingenious way they have been added to and upgraded so much that in some cases you can't even imagine the original stone boxes they used to be.

There are many churches of interest and also renowned neo-classical mansions scattered throughout the city, particularly in the old aristocratic neighborhoods. Mytilini has been a prominent intellectual center in the Aegean from ancient times to the present and is an important center of the Greek Orthodox church. The popular Bishop of Mytilini, Iakavos III, is known for his work rescuing children in Serbia during the wars in Yugoslavia and his house overlooks the city. There are several important churches including the Cathedral of Saint Athanasios which was built at the end of the 16th Century and has a secret underground tomb. The sacred relics of Saint Theodore, hung by the Turks in 1795 are kept here and his martyrdom is celebrated February 17th and also on the 4th Sunday after Easter. The saint has been credited with saving the island from a plague in 1836. The largest church in Mytilini is Saint Therapon (photo) built in 1860, which is just behind the habor road in the market. Supposedly the church sits on top of an ancient temple to Apollo. Both churches are full of Byzantine icons and impressive wood-carvings and gold. Also nearby is the Church of Saint Theodore a triple-aisled baslica and the church of Saint Nicholas, a converted mosque.

The old neoclassic mansions and houses make the city of Mytilini itself a sort of museum. But on the outskirts of Mytilini in the neighborhood of Varia are the Theophilos and Teriade Museums which contain collections that any gallery in the world would be honored to have in their possession. For those who have never heard of him Theophilos was an interesting character. Born Theophilos Chatzimichael in 1873 in what is now the suburb of Vareia near Mytilini town. He died in 1934 from food poisoning. His works are inspired by history, mythology, nature and life and once recognized you will see them everywhere, on hotel room walls, advertisements and in cafes and restaurants. They are distinguished by their primitiveness but also for their expressiveness and their color combinations. The paintings of Theophilos are very valuable and hard to find outside of the museum so be sure to visit because even though he painted on walls, doors windows, houses and shops all over the island many of his works have been lost or destroyed. The Teriade Museum contains the collection of Strati Eleftheriadi (Teriade), a patron of the arts, where you can find works by paintings by well known Greek artists, such as Tsarouchis, Vakirtzis, Canellis, Charalambidis as well as the works of great European artists of our time including Picasso, Matisse, Giacometti, Chagall, Le Corbusier, Miro and others. It was Teriade who recognized that Theophilos was a great artist and rescued him from obscurity, preserving the works that still exist. The Archaeological Museum of Mytilini is in the neaighborhood between the ferry port and Mytilini Castle at 8th November Street and focuses on Hellenistic and Roman Lesbos from the 3rd century BC to the 4th century AD. (For more see Lesvos Museums)

There are banks, tourist agencies, car rental offices, and shops of every type. The accommodations and entertainment facilities in the city and suburbs, which are surrounded by greenery and located by the sea, have every modern convenience. Many of the hotels are on the road to the airport and if you are staying there a car is helpful though the city's bus service can keep you from feeling isolated and taxis are cheap. Many people stay out there because of the beaches which are right across the street. But if you are a city person you may want to stay at one of the hotels that is in the center. Visiting all the sights and the museums but especially wandering around the city, the market and the neighborhoods, gives one the knowledge and understanding of a place that is truly Greek. And you don't have to go all the way out to the airport to have a swim either.

One of the most interesting neighborhoods is the area between the waterfront and the castle with a mixture of old Turkish houses and mansions. It is from this neighborhood that the old people make their way on foot and bicycle or papaki (motorbike)to what is one of my favorite places to swim on Lesvos. Below the Statue of Liberty, just on the other side of where the ferry comes in, is a swimming area of concrete platforms where the sea is clean and deep and cool, and you can find many old people doing their daily banyo (bath-swim), deep in conversation as they tread water thirty or forty meters off shore, or do their daily trip to the point and back. There is a changing cabana and a shower too as well as some shade and there are ladders that enable people to easily get in and out of the sea. Below the castle and the pine forest there is the town beach where you pay to go in and in return get a nicer changing room, a cafe, better showers a real beach. There is another concrete swimming platform below the lighthouse just beyond the town beach. Despite this area being within a five minute walk from the center of the city it really is a very nice place to swim similar to swimming off the rocks in Hydra but cleaner and without the irritating beach music. (You can get that at the town beach a couple hundred meters away).

The long dock that separates the swimming area from the harbor is about a half a mile long and people take walks and ride their bikes to the end and back. There are also many people fishing here as the sun begins to set. If you walk to the end there is a large covered cement gazebo and you can hang out and enjoy the sea air and watch the ships come and go just a few feet away. The breakwater and dock that protects the new harbor is really an architectural feat, one of the longest I have seen in the Greek islands. If you are someone who likes to exercise by walking you can start anywhere, walk to the gazebo and back and then around the harbor to the ouzeri at the other end of the harbor and you will have gotten your exercise of the day without even having to cross a street with cars. Or you can go the other way around the castle along the sea, past the old bordellos and end up in the Old Harbor where you can cut in on Ermou Street and end up right back in the new harbor.

Hotels in Mytilini

There are many choices of hotels in Mytilini town and because it is a city they are open year-round. It is not the kind of place where people come to the ferry to offer you rooms. It's a city and you will be a lot happier if you have a hotel booked before you arrive. If you are staying in Mytilini and you can afford it stay at the Pyrgos Hotel if you will feel like royalty. If you are not as free-spending the Blue Sea Hotel could not be more convenient, overlooking the ferry port, has great views, is affordable and is allways my first choice. The Neoclassical Orfeas Hotel is just 150 metres from the port and the nearest beach and is very inexpensive. It offers rooms with a private balcony overlooking the Aegean Sea. Rooms at Orfeas are simply furnished and air conditioned. Each comes with a TV, microwave and mini fridge. All rooms also include a private bathroom with shower and hairdryer. If you don't mind staying a bit out of town and using public transportation or you have a rental car the Greek-Australian family owned Princess Hotel is on the coast road to the airport and the rooms have kitchen facilities for self-catering. For convenience and economy you can't beat the Hotel Sappho, and the Porto Lesvos 1 and the Porto Lesvos 2 are family run hotels in or within a block of the harbor and walking distance of the town beach. In nearby Varia on the road to the airport the Loriet Hotel (photo)is a restored 18th Century mansion run by a wonderful Greek-Australian couple. It could just as easily pass for a museum, except it has a very nice swimming pool and you get to sleep in the antique beds. I highly recommend this place and make sure to get a room in the main building if available. Down the road the 4-star Heliotrope Hotel is a full resort complex with swimming pool, tennis courts and restaurant/bar a short drive or bus ride to town.

You can find other hotels in Mytilini at www.hotelsofgreece.com and on the Hotels page of this website. The best way to book is through one of the Lesvos Travel Agencies. You can also book hotels on Booking.com's Mytilini Page.

Arrival in Mytilini

This was one of my first impressions of Mytilini, written around 1995 from my book In Search of Sardeles Pastes which is a part of a large work called Spearfishing in Skatahori

Mytilini town at seven in the morning is a beautiful place. Traffic is light and the air is clean. Already the market street is alive with fish, meat and vegetable sellers. I am instantly attracted to the fish shops which are full of sardines, anchovies, and mackerel for under two dollars a pound. I can spend hours looking at these fish, so fresh their eyes shine like cats caught in headlights. I stare at the sardeles pastes, easily my favorite. These were caught this morning and immediately salted. By evening they will be sold in the cafeneons to be peeled and eaten with ouzo, the Lesbian equivalent of sushi, and to my taste, superior. And at a thousand drachma a kilo, a hundred times cheaper.

Andrea pulls me away from the magnetic fish and into a cafeneon full of old men. Though she usually has no qualms about invading the sanctity of these men-only cafes, this time she hesitates at the door. "Is it open?" she asks me even though we can both see the place is full and loud male voices are echoing off the stone walls and high ceilings. I know what she means and I feel irritated that she would cross a boundary that no woman from the island would dare, and that I was her accomplice. I become self-conscious about my role in her incursion. I am a traitor to my race and my gender. My shirt is too orange, my shorts are too purple and holding my daughter I feel like a fool in the company of these old men who have fought for their beliefs and for their livelihoods in harder times. I notice on the wall two portraits of Aris Velouchiotis, the communist guerilla leader and hero who harassed the Germans and helped liberate the country after WWII, only to be hunted down and killed by the army of the right-wing government that the British and Americans decided should rule after the occupation.

In Greece the end of the second world war meant the beginning of a civil war which was even bloodier, as the army, which had fled from the advancing Germans and gone to Egypt with the government in exile, returned to go to war with the communists, who from the mountains, had organized, attacked, and then filled the vacuum created by the retreating Germans and controlled almost all of Greece. A communist Greece was not part of the post war vision the great powers had in mind so in what could be called the beginning of the Cold War, the Americans supplied the money and the weapons in a bloody fight that pitted brother against brother and tore villages and families apart. Men who had been heroes for their exploits against the Germans, were now called murderers and scoundrels, hunted down, imprisoned, tortured, exiled or killed. When it was over Greece was 'free' from communism until it was legalized after the fall of the military Junta in 1974. Now in a country in which over 80% of the people vote for either PASOK(socialist) or New Democracy(conservative), the island of Lesvos is known for the popularity of the communist party.

I am aware that I sit in a room full of old men who half a century ago wore their hair long, rode horses, wore cartridge belts and used vintage rifles against a powerful enemy with tanks and modern weapons and after attaining victory found themselves doing it all over again against their own country men, this time suffering defeat. It is unlikely that I will ever know the feeling of betrayal that these men have felt. One old man sits next to his cup of Turkish coffee, his mouth and the lines of his face point to the floor in a permanent frown. His eyes stare at a pop-art poster that looks completely out of place on the wall, though it is obvious to me that what he is seeing is the sadness of his own life. Lost loved ones, and broken dreams. I feel unworthy of the Turkish coffee I drink. To further drive in the point they have given it to me in a glass instead of the small white cups the old men drink from.

I escape to the market and look at the fish again. While the rest of Greece has watched their fish populations decline due to unorthodox fishing methods such as dynamite, it looks to me like the industry is alive and well in Lesvos. Most of the sardines and anchovies come from the bay of Kaloni, more like an inland sea. They are sold everywhere, fried, grilled or raw. Last year I carried home at least fifteen pounds of canned fish and another ten of tinned ouzo and was never asked to open my bags after sending them through the x-ray machines at Kennedy. The ouzo went fast. Canned sardines are a poor substitute for fresh and I still have some remaining. Nevertheless I am still inactively shopping for them. The headless ones in the blue cans are the best I have been told. The trick is to eat them before they eat their way through the cans.

The attraction of Mytilini town is strong, with it's tiny crowded streets, shops, restaurants and cafeneons, but we have a whole island to explore, villages to visit, beaches to swim, sardines to eat and ouzo to drink.

More Helpful Info for Mytilini

For a listing of recommended hotels in Lesvos see www.hotelsofgreece.com/northaegean or for a more personal view see the hotels page on this site. You can also book hotels on Booking.com's Mytilini Page.

For restaurant reviews see the restaurant page on this site.

The bus station is just to the left of the park which is next to the Municipal theatre and City Hall.

Have a look at the shop called Buy Lesvos at 63 Kountoyriotou which is the main street in the port where you can find all sorts of traditional Lesvos products including ouzo, wine and sardines (canned of course).

Right next door are the ferry ticket offices and travel agencies. You can book tours to Turkey at many of the ticket offices on the waterfront.

If you want to take a swim the public beach is just on the other side of the ferry dock below the castle. There are better beaches on the road to the airport and beyond, many with cafes and fish restaurants nearby.

For more information about Lesvos you can e-mail me

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Do you enjoy using my site? Have you found it entertaining as well as useful? If so please show your appreciation by booking hotels through the travel agencies and the links found on my Lesvos Hotels page. The small comission I make on the bookings enable me to keep working and in most cases you won't find them any cheaper by searching elsewhere. You can also book hotels on Booking.com's Mytilini Page.