Notes From Abroad: Chios, Excursion to Mestá, Pyrgí, and the Mastic Museum
Our time in Nafplio came to an end all too quickly, and one early morning we departed for the airport in Athens. Our destination: Chios, just a 20 minute plane ride from mainland Greece. Chios was the focal point of our trip, as we would be attending a very special wedding there. Both the bride and groom were raised at our current parish, and they and their families are very involved and much beloved by all. Chios is within sight of Turkey; that blue streak near the horizon in the first picture is the city of Çesme. And really, it is apparent in Chios just what a crossroads the island has been for thousands of years.
Our flight landed at the airport at noon, and by one we had checked into our gorgeous hotel, and boarded a bus for a tour of southern Chios, arranged by the groom's family.
Our first stop was Mestá, a charming medieval village, and the church of the Taxiarchis in the center of town. Here the weather was cooler and breezier than in Nafplio, and we wandered through the shady streets that reminded me of places I've been in Italy and France. No wonder, as the Genoese era spanned two hundred years right at the cusp of the Renaissance.
After our lovely stroll through Mestá, we hopped onto the bus again, this time to disembark in Pyrgí to view the decorated houses there. After applying stucco to the outside of the buildings, artisans scrape away the top layer to make the designs seen above. We paused for a drink and pitas in the village square--the drink of choice being this. I'm not a huge fan of mastic, but paired with ginger, it was very refreshing! Pyrgí was quite a bit warmer than Mestá, so this stop, paired with the lovely conversation between our fellow pilgrims, gave us the energy to continue to the Chios Mastic Museum.
There we learned so much about how, for centuries, the mastic production supported the prosperity of Chios and how mastic has been harvested and refined. It's a very labor intensive process, primarily undertaken by the women in the villages, one that is only possible in the Mastichochoria. The same trees will not produce mastic anywhere else in the world!* We also heard about how St. Isidoros and mastic are connected. As delighted as I was to learn more about mastic, I had eyes only for the gorgeous textiles, as you can see from the pictures above. I could not believe the impossibly tiny stitches in those gloves!
T has loved mastic for years, and a sweet Chiotissa at our parish keeps him supplied with all things mastiha. She gave him a little spending money for our trip to her home island; of course he spent it at the museum gift shop on a mastic cookbook and some raw mastic. We are looking forward to his cooking this year!
We wrapped up our excursion with stops to several pottery shops on the way to dinner at a delicious restaurant in Agios Fotia with a sea view.
Chios is a truly beautiful island! I look forward to sharing more with you!
*It seems that across the water in Turkey there are also mastic trees? I don't know how much they produce.
Our cooking instructor on Paros told us that they are trying to grow mastic in Turkey but it's difficult. My daughter and I identified a bush on the Byzantine Trail on Paros that was mastic of some kind, but she doubted it, because of what you said about Chios being the only place it will grow. But maybe it is the same tree but the mastic can't be extracted as efficiently for some reason?
ReplyDeleteAt the airport on the way home I shopped at a Mastiha Store and bought pudding mix, chewing gum, coffee and candy containing the herb :-)
Oh, thanks for the information about Turkey. We saw what looked like attempts to harvest it when we were just across the water, but couldn't tell if they were successful.
DeleteI do know that Mastic trees *do* grow elsewhere in the Mediterranean, but don't produce mastic. Even mastic trees in Kardamila, Chios, a northern town that many of our Chian friends call home, do not! It's just in the specific southern villages that mastic can be extracted.
Sounds like you and my son would get along! :)