An island blessed by nature, welcoming and traditional, brimming with colors, scents and flavors that awaken the senses. Chios invites you to discover its rare beauty.
«Even its very name sounds fragrant». With this phrase, one of the most famous travelers of the 18th century, the Frenchman Pierre-Augustin de Guys, sealed his visit to the island, thrilled by the medieval villages, the dozens of caves, and the unique culture of Chios.
Chios is one of those places in Greece that needs time to cultivate its true, multifaceted image within you. Its cosmopolitan spirit combined with the refined manners of the locals - people who sailed the seas and came to know the world - does not reveal itself at the first hello. You have to earn it, by respecting its principles...
Since the time of the great destruction of 1822, Chios was already the fragrant island of the Aegean archipelago, with its famed plain, its mastiha and its beautiful women, about whom de Guys added in ecstasy that «they are as fragrant as the island and as hypnotic as the sea»...
The land of mastiha
Chios could be singularly unique for its mastic trees alone. A strictly endemic species, the famed schinos grow only here and, in fact, not even across the entire island but in one part of it. The beneficial properties of mastiha, known since ancient times, have been the subject of in-depth study in biochemical laboratories abroad and of constant devotion by adherents of healthy eating.
Visitors in the know come to the island towards the end of summer to watch the production process up close and to score the schinos themselves for their precious tears. After all, this is the most suitable season to walk Chios. There are other ways to get to know it. But if you want to touch its virgin beauties, you must get out of the car and satisfy all your senses, seeing, hearing, smelling...
A nature lovers paradise
In Chios, a visitor, even if not one before, will evolve into a true nature lover. There is the lure of the endless expanses of citrus that, when in bloom, spread intoxicating aromas all the way to the sea. There is the walk inside the Gorge of Kampia and its river, at times calm like an irrigation brook and at others impetuous like a torrent. It is that the entire island seems a natural, botanical garden, with trees that belong to high mountains, such as chestnuts and cypresses, and rare birds that build their homes here, between the fissures of the rocks and the unseen canopies of the oaks.
There are also the numerous natural caves, the most important being those of Olympoi and Agio Galas, at the two ends of the island. If lucky, you will live the experience of thousands of butterflies dancing at Glyky Nero. And even if you miss them, you will wonder where so many nightingales came from, in the last days of spring, singing at dawn all over the island, even in the centers of the towns.
A place steeped in history
In Chios, the nature lover will evolve into a history sleuth. He will be drawn close by Apolichna Castle and the old cobbled path that leads to the monastery of the area with a view to the Asia Minor coast. He will be held for hours, so they can tell him their secrets, by the medieval villages of Mesta and Olympoi, which have never been deserted since the first day they were inhabited.
He will be enchanted by Kambos, historic site and traditional settlement protected by the Ministry of Culture, with the Genoese mansions of the 14th century and the mansions of the island’s great families with their distinctive architectural identity, since here the old has always been the starting point and inspiration for the new. He will be moved by the monastery of Agios Minas, where the victims of the great massacre still rest in its ossuary. And in the end he will wonder: was Simonides right when he called Homer, simply, «a man of Chios»? Was this epic island the homeland of the most epic poet of antiquity?
Just as the scents from the tiny citrus blossoms mingle in the air, so too the images of the old with the new and the grand with the humble coexist - without, however, displacing one another - in Chios. To know the island in its depth, one must also extend the stroll toward the citys refugee quarter, with the indigo houses and the multicolored flowers. And to bid the day farewell with the respect it deserves, you should ascend to the abandoned village of Anavatos or the medieval village of Avgonyma, for the most mystical sunset of your life.
Experiences for all the senses
A hundred years ago, Chios was the prized orchard of the Tsars and the emperors of the West. Back then, when each orange was wrapped in gold paper and made the long journey from Kambos to Saint Petersburg to be savored at the lavish tables of the palaces, the island had the reputation of the most fertile place in the Aegean. The Tsars fell, the emperors were deposed, but Chios’ fame not only did not recede but was strengthened by the numerous travelers who tasted its blessing in various forms: sun-dried tomatoes strung up, mirabelles and greengages, sour cherries and wild cherries, fragrant mandarins and lemon blossoms.
Chians love spoon sweets and unleash part of their inventiveness on imaginative recipes that make traditional confectionery pale before them. If you left Chios without putting rose spoon sweet made from the petals of a hundred-petaled rose in your mouth, its time to book your return ticket...
After all, you may have forgotten to swim at Daskalopetra, the beach with the rock where Homer sat and taught his epics. You may not have learned that Vroulidia is the beach that draws the most people today, or you may not have swum in the calm waters of Agia Fotini and Agios Aimilianos. Perhaps you did not even walk on the black, perfectly round volcanic pebbles of Mavra Volia beach, near Emporios.
Perhaps you were swept away by the intoxicating taste of Chiot ouzo and did not try any of the Chiot soft drinks. And if you started with the classics: orangeade, mandarinade, sour-cherryade, perhaps you did not manage to move on to the almond-based soumada. In winter you would drink it hot with cinnamon and in summer ice-cold, so cold it numbs your mouth.
Chios is the island that captivates the senses. It may be with its wines, famed since antiquity, such as «Ariousios Wine». It may be with its raki, tsipouro or souma, made from fig distillates. It may be with the delicate aroma of the schinos and the citrus or the lights of Turkey that are clearly visible at night from the shore. It may even be from the energy that the island itself seems to feed you, with its millennia-old history and its passions. And if you, as a visitor, manage to feel all this within a few days, imagine how the Chiot has been shaped who lived all his life in these places.
If there is a place that can make people feel boundless happiness just because they are alive, that must be Chios. Because, as Hugo wrote, the man who once lamented her so heartrendingly, «the eyes do not see God well except through tears».
Ah! And one last thing: Do not try to transfer this atmosphere to other places. It cant be done. Just as you cannot take a root of schinos with you and have a mastic tree sprout anywhere else, except in Chios.
