Lesvos: 5 car tours, 65 long and short walks

A wonderful walking and bird-watching destination in the Mediterranean, Lesvos offers a stunning combination of natural and man-made landscapes to enjoy on foot or by car. It is a treasure house of very early ancient remains dating from the 7th century BC and boasts one of the finest natural monuments in Europe, the Petrified Forest, created 20 million years ago.Cloaked with forests of chestnut and oak, the island becomes a riot of flowers in the spring and is renowned for its wild orchids (as many as 65 species) and with its own special endemic, Ophrys lesbis.The island’s hills and mountains are riddled with little known ancient trails and cobbled donkey paths, many of which form the walks featured in this new guidebook. Refreshingly free of high-rise hotels and beach-orientated tourism, Lesvos is seizing an opportunity to rediscover itself through ecotourism in its totally unspoilt countryside. Fascinating sites, often unprotected, allow you to do your own interpretation. Follow the authors’ footsteps into villages still steeped in an old way of life and into a countryside as beautiful as any in the Mediterranean. The car tours, too, show off the very best the island has to offer and will take you to some secret places they have discovered.