Limnos
For sale: the middle of nowhere

To be honest, there are very few reasons that could make you want to visit Limnos in the first place. Situated much closer to Turkey than anywhere else, on a crucial geostrategic spot, the island is as armed as a Mexican pistolero. Moreover, this is an island that used to be an exile place: in a not so distant time, depending on one's political beliefs, one could easily end up breaking rocks on this island, with a one-way ticket. Or serve a military service that would make life in gulag seem familiar, albeit on a hot climate. If upon that you add the fact that it takes a long boat trip to get there, and that the place is totally outside the beaten track, unglamorous and looks more like Far West than your average blue-lagoon place for holidays, it is no wonder that most tourists prefer places as Santorini, or Mykonos. Where they can see and be seen, sip over expensive mojitos and lattes while outing and clubbing and swimming on beaches with leather chaise-longues.
On the other hand, this is the way I prefer things too. Because there are other people –ie myself- that might think all of the above are valid reasons to visit Limnos. And indeed, this has been one of my most memorable trips in the Aegean.
Getting there was as hassle-free as it gets: park my car at the Athens airport and in less than an hour we landed, me and my daughter, in a small airplane that made the strip look even bigger (the island has one of the longest landing strips in the Aegean, NATO obliges), in an airport with just one baggage belt, on a perfect sunny day. Another car was waiting for us, parked just in front of the airport entrance (try this in the Brussels airport and they’ll jail you) and off we were in a place that prima vista looked so huge and barren that my first thought was, this is it: The middle of nowhere.
But at the second day, the island started unravelling.

The first impression was, where have all the trees gone? One is used to visit barren islands in the Aegean, but what the hell happened here? With very few exceptions, this island is a rock, a huge one. Compared to this, your average Cyclades island is as exotic as the Amazon forest! On the other hand, I have never seen as many beaches as on Limnos. One could safely say, the island is surrounded by a huge, fine quality beach, interrupted sometimes by a small peninsula, followed by another fine beach and so on, that would make many exotic, faraway and expensive places envious. If one keeps in mind that this is also one of the biggest Greek islands, it is easy to pick your own beach, a different one for every day of your holidays, as we did. You need a car though, buses are infrequent to say the least, but this will be your most rewarding experience. Compared to Greek standards, the island is flat, and kilometres are easy, the scenery lovely and frankly, more than once I wished there were even more kilometres to drive (rarely  happens to me elsewhere). A typical day could start with coffee at Karagiozis, the reference café on the Greek bay, below the northern side of the magnificent fortress (on the southern side of the fortress you have the Turkish bay, a remnant of a past when people used to actually live together, John Lennon-wise). Karagiozis café is the place to post your Facebook pics and make everybody envious, the risk being that you may find yourself not wanting to leave this chillout place, and thus spoil a beach day... Yet if you manage to get up, you can go practically anywhere for a swim (you can actually dive in the water from the café), as long as there is a road to get you to the sea. This will often be a dirt road, one well worth the kilometres though. Pick any one (ini-mini-mani-mo your fingers on the map) and you will be rewarded, although the ones around Moudros are slightly less scenic. My pic: Neftinas, if you want to really get away from it all, on the northern side, and Keros, with its world famous surf club and its zen ambiance on the western side. At Keros I saw the best camping I have ever visited. Lovely view, free wifi and laptops to use, hammocks for a quick nap after and before (re)surfing, laid-back and sporty at the same time (windsurf clubs always manage somehow to combine the ambiance of a university library and a sports club): how closer can one get to nirvana?
One of the most amazing things on Limnos is, when you finally get to your own remote beach, after a rather long but scenic drive, you may find not much alive on it, but what will definitely be available where the road ends is a canteen, usually a caravan dressed in bamboos and wood, with an extremely helpful patron that will find a way to quench your thirst and fill your stomach in the most hospitable way. The owner of the beach bar in Neftinas will haunt us for this whole winter at least, with his “improvised” meals and freddos, his backgammons of all sizes, his beach rackets, for almost nothing. And btw, even on the loneliest beach at the other edge of the island, you are going to be spoilt with the best Illy coffee, any way you like it, a thing that for me at least would be equivalent to finding a Starbucks in the middle of Kalahari desert. Most countries I have visited still do not seem to distinguish between mud and good coffee. Limnos does, and this brings it up ten notches for me.
There is not much more to say about the place, apart that I wish I were there right now, instead of watching the rain from my window. Hanging on a hammock at Keros, reading my book, watching my girl surf and thinking, goddammit, where can he have dinner tonight?*

Enjoy the pics, visit Limnos!

a film: Keros Surf Club on time lapse

*The place to indulge yourself is called Mandela (Μαντέλλα),  at the village of Sardes.  It has 4 ½ stars in Tripadvisor and everything, even bread, is home made. Believe me, your diet can wait, but you cannot!