By Keiji Uehara
Sigri is a tiny fisherman village which has only 300 habitats, which is almost same number as people who are sitting in the library where I am now, but there are many attractive factors as tourist place; blue, clean, and transparent sea, sandy beach, petrified forests, white houses with red roofs which are the perfect contrast with the blue sky and sea, historical Turkish castle, fresh seafood, and so on. The climate is also nice; the weather is mostly fine and the temperature is hot in the summer but it is also windy enough to surf and not to need the air conditioner in the buildings. It is also very quiet and you sometimes can only hear the sound of wave. I visited there in June, so it might not be the peak of tourist season, but not that many tourists were there and it attracted me more. When I went to one of the sandy beaches, which was located just next to the center, only local people were swimming there. Maybe in July and in August, this small fisherman village would be full of tourists, but I did not see too many tourist accommodations there. What I want to say is that Sigri is far from mass tourism, which is usually unsustainable and distracts local community and environment. That does not mean that Sigri is not enough attractive to bring tourists but not many people know about this place. Although Lesvos is the third largest island in Greece, it is not that famous as touristy place. I am from Japan and hundreds of information about Greece is available both on the internet on books, but not about Lesvos. Only “Lonely Planet” and some other English guidebooks have its information but not in detail and very little about Sigri. It might not be special place for tourists who are looking for the gorgeous beach resort or very special buildings and landscape like Molivos, but it is not a problem because the most attractive things in Sigri are serene hush with beautiful sandy beaches and local seafood and internationally unique petrified forests, and the number limitation of visitors is essential to sustain them. For that, it should not increase the number of accommodation facilities but improve the service quality for limited tourists and locals and maintain the natural environment.
