Vatera Beach

Vatera Beach at Sunset

JL in Agiossis

JL on Mount Olympus Looking for a Lightning Bolt

SL and the Flowering Shrubs by the Roadside

SL Mount Olympus

Vatera Beach

We said goodbye to our much-beloved Molivos and headed off for Vatera, a much more quiet, secluded place.  Although we had no idea what to expect, I appreciated how Lorraine must have felt before we married about going out on a blind date with someone else, after all, she was dating me, so how could it be any better???
Anyway, at first our fears seemed to be justified, as our blind date seemed to fall far short of what we had been used to in Molivos. Vatera is MUCH smaller, with almost no shops, and only about a dozen restaurants/bars scattered around the beach. Many of the houses?/shops?/hotels? under construction seemed to have just been abandoned, given part of the strip a bit of a war zone appearance.  In many cases, there is a first floor, then steps outside leading to ??  Nothing!  (inspiration for a song, "and she's buying a stairway, to..."
We decided to make the most of it, and started to appreciate Vatera (VatterAH, not VaTERRa) for what it had to offer.
Takis and Jenny, our innkeepers, couldn't be nicer or more knowledgeable. They both speak excellent English, and have a good sense of humour – they laugh at my jokes. Our hotel is very good – clean, AC, and a large balcony.
The beach at Vatera looks stony at first, but then you learn to appreciate the sparkling blue waters that each year are awarded the Blue Flag of Europe for the cleanest waters.  We try to swim every day, something we did not do in Molivos. The water feels a bit cool at first, but then it is just fabulous!
The town is quiet, but that's OK as most days we do an excursion or just swim in the sea.  The food at the hotel is fabulous, and I am still eating fish almost every day.
Our excursions mostly exist of getting lost on mountain roads trying to find an historic site or museum before we break an axle on the car.  We recently went up Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in Lesvos, and the second highest in all of Greece. The view was spectacular and it was a beautiful day, but that did not stop me hurling thunderbolts down on the unsuspecting villagers - Zeus would have approved.
We also went through a beautiful little mountain village called Agiossis, famous for its pottery and wood-carving.  It seemed to us to be by far the most traditional atmosphere we have come across to date.  The townsfolk were all gathered in the square, drinking coffee and Mythos (beer), arguing about the Greek basketball team and wondering aloud who was the jerk throwing all those thunderbolts earlier.  Potters sat by their wheels and vendors shouted out their wares as the storekeepers tried to entice you in to their little shops to buy something.
We returned to our little hotel The Vatera Beach to dine on “Married Sardines”.  Sardines are gutted, cleaned, marinated, and then filled with fresh herbs and spices before being forced to lay facing together on top of each other in pairs “Married Sardines???” on the grill.  They are then covered in a lemon-mustard sauce.  In all the years that Jenny has been serving them, she has never had a single diner say anything but superlatives about this dish.  We did not break her record.
Next – feeding the turtles, fine dining and wine.