The petrified forest near Sigri

Western Lesvos is a different island: no olive groves, no pines, just open volcanic hills of red and grey rock with almost no shade. Buried in them is one of the largest petrified forests in the world — sequoias, pines and palms turned to stone by ash and silica after eruptions around twenty million years ago, some still upright with their roots in place.

The main visitor park, on the road between Sigri and Eresos, has marked paths past excavated trunks; a museum in Sigri holds the finest specimens. For photographs, the appeal is the emptiness. Bare ground, distant ridges, a horizon with nothing man-made on it, and a fossil log that reads as sculpture — it is the most stripped-back landscape in the North Aegean and the least Greek-looking place in this dataset.

Light is the challenge. There is no shelter and the sun is direct from mid-morning to late afternoon, so plan for the first or last two hours, when long shadows do the modelling. Overcast is workable; wind is constant here and often strong.

The paths are gravel and stone with some gradient, and the trunks themselves are protected — stay on the marked route and do not climb on or touch the fossils. Opening hours and ticketing are set by the museum, and they change with the season, so check before driving out: it is a long way from anywhere.