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The shores of Moudhros Bay , glimpsed south of the trans-island road, are muddy and best avoided unless you're a clam-digger. The bay itself enjoyed considerable importance during World War I, culminating in the Ottoman surrender aboard the British warship HMS Agamemnon here on October 30, 1918. The port of MOUDHROS , the second-largest town on Limnos, is a dreary place, with only a wonderfully kitsch, two-belfried church to recommend it. The closest decent beach is at Havouli , 4km south by dirt track and still far from the open sea. Despite this, there are three hotels here; best of these, if overpriced, is Kyma (tel 02540/71 333, fax 71 484; ?43-58), whose more reasonable restaurant is well placed for a lunch break if you're visiting the archeological sites and beaches of eastern Limnos. About 800m along the Roussopouli road, you pass an Allied military cemetery (unlocked) maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission; its neat (if rather dry) lawns and rows of white headstones seem incongruous in such parched surroundings. In 1915, Moudhros Bay was the principal staging area for the disastrous Gallipoli campaign. Of the roughly 36,000 Allied dead, 887 - mainly battle casualties who died after having been evacuated to the base hospital at Moudhros - are buried here, with 348 more at another signposted graveyard behind the church in Portianou. Indications of the most advanced Neolithic civilization in the Aegean have been unearthed at Polyokhni ( Polyochni ), 3km from the gully-hidden village of Kaminia (7km east of Moudhros). The site occupies a bluff overlooking a long, narrow rock-and-sand beach flanked by stream valleys. Since the 1930s, Italian excavations have uncovered five layers of settlement, the oldest from late in the fourth millennium BC, predating Troy on the Turkish coast opposite. The town met a sudden, violent end from war or earthquake in about 2100 BC. The actual ruins (daily 8am-7pm; free) are of essentially specialist interest, though a bouleuterion (assembly hall) with bench seating, a mansion and the landward fortifications are labelled. During August and September the Italian excavators are about, and may be free to show you around the place; at other times you should obtain the useful TAP brochure from the Myrina museum to make any sense of the place. Ifestia and Kavirio, the other significant ancient sites on Limnos, are reached via the village of Kondopouli, 7km northeast of Moudhros. Both sites are rather remote, and only reachable with your own transport. Ifestia ( Hephaestia ), 4km from Kondopouli by rough, signposted track, has little to offer nonspecialists. Kavirio ( Kabireio ), on the opposite shore of Tigani Bay and accessed by the same road built to serve the now-bankrupt and derelict Kaviria Palace luxury complex, is more evocative. The ruins (daily 8am-7pm; free) are those of a sanctuary connected with the cult of the Samothracian Kabiroi, though the site here is probably older. Little survives other than the ground plan, but the setting is undeniably impressive. Eleven column stumps stake out a stoa, behind eight spots marked as column bases in the telestirio or shrine where the cult mysteries took place. More engaging, perhaps, is a nearby sea grotto identified as the Homeric Spilia tou Filoktiti , where the Trojan war hero Philoctetes was abandoned by his comrades-in-arms until his stinking, gangrenous leg had healed. Landward access to the cave is via steps leading down from the caretaker's shelter, though final access (from a little passage on the right as you face the sea) involves some wading. The beach at Keros , 2.5km by dirt road below KALLIOPI (which has two snack bar/ tavernas , and smart rooms at the edge of town - tel 02540/41 730, ?34-42), is the best in this part of the island. A 1500-metre stretch of sand with dunes and a small pine grove, plus shallow water, it attracts a number of Greek tourists and foreigners with camper vans and windsurfers; a small snack kantina operates near the parking area during July and August only. On the other side of Kondopouli, reached via Repanidhi village, the often dirty, hard-packed beach of Kotsinas is set in the protected western limb of Bournia Bay. The nearby anchorage (follow signs to "Kotsinas Fortress") offers a pair of tavernas ; the better of these is To Korali by the water, which is reliably open at lunch, with a wide range of mezedhes and affordable fish. Up on a knoll overlooking the jetty, there's a corroded, sword-brandishing statue of Maroula, a Genoese-era heroine who delayed the Ottoman conquest by a few years, and a large church of Zoodhohou Piyis (the Life-Giving Spring). This is nothing extraordinary, but beside it 63 steps lead down through an illuminated tunnel in the rock to the potable (if slightly mineral) spring in question, oozing into a cool, vaulted chamber.
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