Descendants of the Sun | Gomati Dunes, Lemnos — The Desert Greece Does Not Advertise

The land behind the Uruk camp is dry, pale and empty. No trees, no horizon markers, wind moving the surface. It reads as somewhere hot and far away, which is the entire job.

It is a Greek island in the north Aegean. Pachies Ammoudies, near the village of Gomati on Lemnos, is roughly seventy hectares of live sand dune sitting directly against farmland and the sea. Locals call it the Sahara of Lemnos. Nobody planted it and nobody manages it; the prevailing wind has been pushing sand inland for long enough that the field simply exists.

Getting there takes commitment. The track from Gomati toward Katalakko is rough, a four-wheel drive helps, and the last stretch is a walk. There is no gate, no ticket, no facilities and no shade. Production also worked in Myrina, the island capital, on the other side of the island.

Walk in far enough and the ridge of the dune cuts off the green fields behind you. That is the whole trick the show needed, and it happens naturally about two hundred metres from the edge — the moment you can no longer see anything agricultural, Lemnos becomes Uruk without a single frame of visual effects.

Bring water. Come at either end of the day. At noon the sand is a white sheet with nothing in it, which is dramatic on camera and unpleasant to stand on.

Pachies Ammoudies, near Gomati, Lemnos, North Aegean.