Lemnos
— — the island the fire-god kept.
Not only on a wall.
“The eighth-largest of the Greek islands sits low and volcanic in the north Aegean, closer to Turkey than to Athens. The capital Myrina holds a Venetian-Byzantine castle on a headland that splits two beaches, and at dusk a small herd of fallow deer comes down the rock to drink. Thyme honey, kalathaki cheese, and a sand-dune desert at Pachies Ammoudies — the only true desert in Europe — give the island its own quiet weather. from the studio
Lemnos, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Lemnos is a volcanic island of about 477 square kilometres in the north Aegean, the eighth largest of the Greek islands and home to roughly 17,000 people. The capital, Myrina, sits on the west coast beneath a Byzantine-Venetian castle first fortified in the twelfth century and rebuilt by the Venetians and Ottomans. The island lies closer to the Turkish coast than to mainland Greece, about 65 kilometres west of the Dardanelles, and gave Greek mythology the lame smith-god Hephaestus, who in Homer is said to have fallen from Olympus onto its shore.
The castle above Myrina occupies a rocky headland that divides the town's two beaches, Romeikos Gialos and Tourkikos Gialos. The walls trace the outline first fortified by the Byzantines in 1186 and rebuilt under Venetian and then Ottoman control. The site was an Andronikos Komnenos commission, later expanded after the Fourth Crusade. A herd of fallow deer has lived on the headland for decades and comes down the rock at dusk to drink at the cisterns inside the walls. The view from the upper battlements reaches across to Mount Athos on a clear evening.
The island runs on a long dry summer and a windy spring. Meltemi winds blow from the north through July and August and make Lemnos one of the more reliable windsurfing destinations in the Aegean, especially the bay at Keros on the east coast. Thyme honey is harvested in late summer and the PDO-protected Kalathaki Limnou cheese is made in small dairies year-round. The Pachies Ammoudies dunes near Katalakko form the only true desert landscape in Europe, an inland sand sheet that shifts a few metres each year on the prevailing wind.