About Robin

We started visiting Lesvos such a long time ago we can't remember when. We simply fell in love with the island in general and Molyvos in particular. In 2005 we bought some land and tried to manage the building of our house from the UK. Holidays became site visits and our house was [mostly] completed in 2007. In 2009 we sold up in the UK and moved to Molyvos. This is now our home and we count ourselves amongst the luckiest of the lucky. I am a member of the Molyvos Tourist Association, providing photographs for their brochures and general publicity. Most of my time is spent on activities to encourage tourism or taking photographs of one of the most beautiful places on earth. I also produce calendars and sell them on-line through Lesvos Calendars. Please visit and have a look. You can also see more of my photographs on my  Robin Sanders Photography website.

Autumn

Autumn RainSummer is now almost over. When the very last charter flight takes summer visitors back home on October 29th, we will all feel that Autumn is truly here.

October has so far been warm and sunny but it looks like the rains will arrive on the 23rd. You can find out what the weather is doing in Molyvos by visiting the Molyvos Weather Station.

All of the tourist industry is now winding down (if not already closed) and Lesvos is preparing for winter. You might think that this will mean lots of relaxation and catching up on sleep. There is however just the small matter of picking the olives from more than 11 million olive trees that cover over a quarter of the island! It is very hard, back breaking work that results in world famous, award winning oliveOlive Oil fresh from Stypsi oil. Next time you visit Lesvos you must take time to visit the Museum of Industrial Olive-Oil Production in Agia Paraskevi.

So while the winter rains (and snows perhaps) are falling there is something you can do to keep just a little ‘summer’ alive. Read through some of our pages and start to plan where you will visit next year. Lesvos is blessed. There is so much to see, so much to do and so much to experience. Lesvos has already started preparing for your visit.

Make sure you are ready!

A Stroll in the woods above Lafionas

The numerous and diverse walks on Lesvos are legend. There are many books written about walking on Lesvos. Now that the daytime temperatures are beginning to cool, our season of ‘adventure’ has begun. Each year we try to discover something new. In order to ease our summer bodies into the vigour of the Lesvos landscape, we frequently begin with a familiar walk that we know to be gentle and shady. So on 10 October, we decide to go for a leisurely stroll around the hill above Lafionas.

As the weather was very hazy, I decided that landscape photography would not be productive so put a macro lens on my camera.

Cyclamen in the hills above LafionasWhat a good decision! As we climbed the footpath rising above Lafionas we passed a small patch of Cyclamen poking stunning little flowers out of the pine needles.

Our walk was punctuated with stops to view elusive insects, admire the views over Petra towards Turkey and simply listen to the silence.

As we rounded a corner we found an Oak tree with red/brown shiny and very sticky galls about 3cm in diameter. We then spotted different galls on the underside of a leaf. These were about 5-7 mm in diameter. We then found yet another type of gall this one was just over 1 cm. Please email me if you can help identify the types below.

The last surprise came when I stopped to photograph some dried thistles. I didn’t spot the brightly coloured Carpocoris nymph until I was doing a quick review of the picture.

Carpocoris nymph

I love Lesvos. I love the way a simple stroll through the pine forest with friends turns into a wildlife adventure. Lafionas is a beautiful hillside village that has real character and charm. It is worth visiting just for that. When you add in the amazing views towards Turkey and the walk around the mountain you have one amazing morning.

The walk features in the book On Foot in North Lesvos.

Click here for a further selection about walking on Lesvos.

The Captain’s Table is open.

The Captain's TableAfter an explosion and fire destroyed the Captain’s Table in Molyvos harbour on Tuesday 13 May, nobody believed that the restaurant could possibly re-open this summer. Nobody except Melinda, Theo and the family that is.

Today is Thursday 6 August and all the hard work has paid off.

The Captain’s Table is open!

New growthWhen you consider that what was left of the old building had to be knocked down before
the rebuild could start, you realise just how much hard work has gone into today’s opening.

The building is new, the kitchen is new, the tables and chairs were rescued from the debris of the explosion. Even the badly burnt tree next to the restaurant is making an effort and today has new green shoots to help celebrate the re-opening.

A new chapter begins for the Captains Table, let us hope that the final lines are

“and they all lived happily ever after.”

Lesvos Lightning

On 6 August we had another spectacular electrical storm. Lesvos Lightning can be dramatic and the gaps between strikes can sometimes be counted in seconds. Below is a very short video that gives you some idea of the ‘fun’. Luckily for us, the rain didn’t arrive so we could sit on out on our doorstep and admire the show.

I am not sure that the people of Sigri and Eressos would have enjoyed it quite as much, the ground strikes seemed to be mostly in their direction. As you can see from the times of the strikes, that was a pretty hectic 10 minutes. I should also say that I did miss quite a few others in that period! These are just the most spectacular.

If you have any pictures of the Lesvos Lightning Show then please email them to us, we would love to share them.

Of course, we had plenty of time to prepare as Weather Underground gave a pretty accurate forecast. I like to think that was because of the data coming from the Molyvos Weather Station, but I suspect others had a hand in it too.

Lesvos Weather

Some visitors to Lesvos comment that web sites reporting Lesvos Weather don’t always reflect what is happening in the more popular tourist area of Anaxos, Petra and Molyvos.

Well, now you can see a local report from out weather station just outside Molyvos.

View current conditions at the Molyvos Weather Station web-site

 

 

Lesvos Weather Screen shotWould you like to see our weather station data on your mobile? No problem at all!

Type http://goo.gl/QUN803 into your smartphone web browser and you will get our ‘specially formatted for Smartphone’ webpage. The picture on the left is a screengrab from an android phone.

If you have your Smartphone handy and have a scanner app then you can scan the QR code at the bottom of the page to take you to the Smartphone webpage.

There are links to show graphs of daily and weekly temperatures, rainfall, barometer and wind speeds.

There is also a UV index reading to try and help you stay safe in the sun.

Our weather station is new and the software is experimental. The numbers will be correct but you might find from time to time that we have stopped updating. We started to collect data on 25 June 2014 so we don’t have much historical data.

We hope that the information on the Lesvos Weather webpage is useful and interesting.

Lesvos Weather qr code