They'll be back. Once again, I raise my question about the mysterious Benjamin the Wise Lesbian. The residential streets that lead to my hotel are lined with poplars and palms. Behind iron gates are gardens rich with summer roses and jasmine and tiled courtyards. The weeping white marble staircase of one house is strewn with oranges dropped from the trees that flank its formal entrance.
Many mansions have a metal door knocker in the shape of a woman's hand.
This seems appropriate, since each of these houses was likely once a substantial portion of a daughter's dowry. My own hotel was once a merchant's summer mansion, and when it was built in the 19th century it would have been reached from town by boat. Lesbos is an island with a special gift for fantasy. Wandering from village to village is like pausing before different paintings. At Madamados, in the island's north, is a church with an extraordinary icon of the patron saint.