Mytilene & the east

Mytilene is where you land and where the boats dock, and unlike most island capitals it is worth days rather than an afternoon. The castle is one of the largest in the Mediterranean; there is an ancient theatre above the town, a good archaeological museum, and at Varia the Theophilos museum, devoted to the naive painter who died poor on this island.

Behind the city the Gera gulf cuts deep inland — sheltered water, olive terraces, the thermal baths at Therma and the monastery of Saint Raphael at Thermi. The swimming is at Agios Ermogenis and Charamida south of town, with Tarti round on the south-east coast.

This is the practical base: the airport is here, the ferries from Piraeus and the North Aegean line come in here, and so does the crossing to Ayvalik in Turkey. It is also the thinnest end of the island for hotels — most of the island's beds are in the north — so book early or treat Mytilene as the first and last night of a longer loop.