Lesvos, with a population of some 120,000 inhabitants as a large bustling island has not been attracted to tourism but in recent years it has developing itself as a destination. Lesvos is the birthplace of the ancient bards Sappho, Aesop, Arion and more recently, the Greek primitive artist Theophilos, the Nobel laureate poet Odysseus Elytis and the novelist Stratis Myrivilis.
Greece’s third-largest island, after Crete and Evia, the roughly triangular Lesvos is marked by long sweeps of rugged, desert-like western plains that give way to sandy beaches and salt marshes in the center of the island. Further east are thickly forested mountains and dense olive groves.
Near the cornes of the triangular Lesvos are the three principal towns Mitilini, Molivos, and Eressos. Mitilini and Molivos are about as different as two towns on the same island could possibly be. Mitilini is a working port town low on sophistication or pretension, with little organized tourism and lots of local character. Molivos is a picturepost card seaside village, a truly beautiful place, but in the summer it exists only for tourism. Due to its remote location, Eressos is a good destination for a day trip, but not a recommended base for touring the island.
Recommended to visit in Lesvos are the Archaeological and Theophilos museums in Mitilini the town of Mandamados and its celebrated icon , the remarkable, mile-long beach of Eressos and the labyrinthine streets of Molivos’s castle-crowned hill. Getting around on Lesvos is somewhat complicated by the presence of two huge
tear-shaped bays in the south coast, which split the island at its center. Mytilini, the port and capital of Lesvos sprawls between and around of those two bays divided by a fortified promontory.
Lesvos is located in the north Aegean and belongs to the Northeast Aegean Islands group which contains the islands Samos and Chios also. Those three islands is far away from the Greek mainland, dispersed along the coast of Turkey. The geographic coordinates of Lesvos are 39°16’15.1″N 26°14’35.9″E in Aegean Sea.
