And so we leave the south of the island and head for the middle and the north! Vessa turned out to be a lot closer than we thought and so we arrived earlier than anticipated or expected so parked up and had a stroll through the village to find the accommodation. 5 mins later we had done that and found the house that would be our home for the next 3 days. Vessa is tiny and consists of a fair number of houses and 2 tavernas...that's it. The house itself was lovely, as was our room but the advertised breakfast was somewhat lacking!!!
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| Bedroom ceiling |
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| Bedroom |
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| Kitchen |
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| Breakfast! |
While we were in Vessa we visited the monastery of Nea Moni. This is is possibly the most prominent medieval monument in Chios. It was established in the mid 11th century with a grant from a Byzantine emperor. During the massacre of Chios it was a refuge to several hundred women and children. Unfortunately the invaders did not take any notice of this and slaughtered them anyway.
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| Massacre of Chios |
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| Victims of the Chios massacre |
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| Nea Moni |
We also visited the village of Anavatos where the villagers gathered and threw themselves from the highest point rather than getting slaughtered by the Turks or taken to be slaves.
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| Church at Anavatos |
We also visited the village of Avganyma but it appeared to be shut!
We enjoyed our time in Vessa and managed to adopt a couple of cats, surprise surprise, then it was on to our next stop, Volissos,
Our next village is the largest in the north of the island, Volissos. First impressions are good. It has a few tavernas, a bar and a cafe, whoop whoop!! Everyone is very friendly and the apartment is lovely. We took a stroll down to a couple of the beaches and there is a small harbour with 2 more tavernas and a couple of bars. It also has a castle on the hill and apparently a bakery...which try as we might, we cannot find!
The lady at Fabrika's taverna thinks we are lovely and said so on our bill. We are always friendly to people and it is obviously appreciated as we had tea, coffee and cake on the house. The food was ok but nothing special and is all grill at this time of the year. The following time we ate we were greeted like long lost friends and also received mastic liquer and a bag of oranges!!
One evening we went down to the small harbour and had a lovely dinner on the waterfront. Sea bream for me and mackerel for Paul. We have also taken the opportunity to go across to the other side of the island to visit Langkada and Kardamila. Langkada was lovely with a beautiful harbour front with cafes and tavernas. We got chatting to a lovely couple, Tony and Victoria. She is Greek Australian and he is from Chios. When we started chatting about Alonissos it turned out that he has friends living there but they have never been.
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