Picture yourself sailing from the Aegean sunset to a small port in the tip of a peninsula. In the crimson, purple and yellow colors of sundown, you see the houses of the village, white with scarlet tiles, and its small streets that lead to the harbor. 

This magical place is the village of Sigri, which draws its name from the greek word for safety. 

A star-shaped fortress overlooks the village and its port, adding a twist of history to the breathtaking sunset, which is fairly considered as one of the best in Greece.

But history only begins there. 

As you stroll down the village, you will come across the 400 year old ottoman mosque that was converted into a church, the Turkish baths and the village windmill. 

Sigri is also home to the island’s best exclusive fish taverns. The fruits of the sea and the fresh fish arriving on your table, cooked shortly after being caught are a local passion that will initiate you to what we like to call a ”fishetarian diet”. 

Still, the real sensation is the Petrified Forest that lies by the village, taking you to a journey twenty million years back in the history of the Aegean. 

Imagine hiking through an area of more than 37000 acres that has frozen in time. Catch your breath under the fossilized trunks of a prehistoric woodland and admire its glory as it arises from the wild volcanic landscape that swallowed them and brought them to us anew. 

A short walk away from the village of Sigri, the lapping of the sea waves slowly revealed a miracle springing from the volcanic rock and the azure water: the unique petrified forest of Lesvos, a long glimpse down the distant past of our planet, a plant life frozen in time as lava enveloped it more than twenty million years ago.

The fossilized trunks, in all their glory, dwarf the colorful flowers that surround them, springing from blooming fields like statues from an unrecorded past. The standing trunks are autochthonous, their petrified roots still grasping to the ground from which they sprang long before the dawn of man. 

You will stumble upon standing trees with a diameter of more than three meters and fallen ones more than twenty meters long, giant silent remains of how the Aegean basin looked in prehistoric times.

Recognizing the major geological and paleontological value of the site, the Greek State has declared the Petrified Forest to be preserved as a Natural Monument. In 1994, the Natural History Museum of the Lesvos Petrified Forest was founded, aiming at the study, research, appointment, preservation and protection of the Petrified Forest of Lesvos.

In February 2004 the Petrified Forest was integrated in the Global Network of Geoparks assisted by UNESCO and it is justly proposed to be voted as one of the seven wonders of nature. Moreover, the forest is the recipient of the European EDEN (European Destinations of Excellence) Award of top tourist destinations in 2009.

Close your eyes and place yourself under the shadows of these giants. Admire the uninterrupted continuity of the landscape in terms of beauty, tranquility, and lavish colors and scents.