Sources de Polichnitos — Lesbos

Polichnitos is a village in the southern part of Lesbos island in the North Aegean, home to a thermal bathing facility fed by one of the hottest natural spring waters in Greece — a bicarbonate source that emerges at 87.6 degrees Celsius, requiring cooling before therapeutic bathing, from the volcanic geology of the southern Lesbos geothermal field. The geothermal activity of southern Lesbos is associated with the island's extraordinary Petrified Forest, a UNESCO Global Geopark where trees up to 500,000 years old have been silicified by ancient volcanic eruptions into stone trunks of extraordinary preservation, creating the largest petrified forest accessible to visitors in Europe. Lesbos also possesses the largest continuous olive grove in Europe — 12 million olive trees, some over 1,000 years old, covering the hills and valleys of the western island — surrounding the Polichnitos thermal springs in one of the most botanically ancient and geologically layered environments in the entire Aegean.