I will be mightily impressed if you can …
Name the five largest Greek islands. They are Crete, Euboea, Lesbos, Rhodes and Chios. It is the last of these that I am interested in as some friends have been spending the summer there and intend to buy a house on the island. First of all let’s see where it is.
It’s the one on the right marked with a red pin, much nearer Turkey than the Greek mainland. It is thirty-one miles long and, at its widest, eighteen miles across with a population of some 52,000. Its history stretches back to Neolithic times. Pliny tells of its variegated marble used for building and St Paul sails by on his way to Samos, according to The Acts of the Apostles.
It was a cradle for the Greek shipping industry in the 19th century. The Crimean war created trading opportunities and about five families on the island built fleets that are still around today. They still retain connections with the island and often inter-marry. A curious feature of the island is its wild tulips. Six of the eleven species of tulip grow naturally on Chios. They caught the eye of Dutch sailors who took bulbs home with them and the Dutch tulip business was born.
It’s a bit of a rigmarole to travel there. There are ferries from Piraeus or a flight in a small ‘plane to the neighbouring island of Psara and then another ferry to Chios. It looks well worth the trip and I hope I get invited to stay.
I have just read about Chios, which was one of the richest and most cultivated of all the islands in the Aegean in the 18th/19th centuries. It was held (lightly) by the Ottomans. Its wealth appeared to be derived from farming, the soil being very fertile. Amongst many other products, it supplied the Ottoman empire with a mastic gum. In 1822 in the Greek war of independence a Greek force from Samos invaded the island. The Turks responded by landing something like ten times as many soldiers. There was a massacre. 25,000 dead, and nearly half the original population, 45,000, were enslaved. No one was left alive in the capital Chora. The 5000 refugees who fled to the monasteries of Nea Moni and Agios Minas were all killed. the greeks had already committed their own atrocities elsewhere, but this topped them all.
Christopher
I loved this post and am really impressed with your computer skills. Little pins on wonderful islands and a film clip that made me smile. Good way to get up. Thnx