Off again for just 1 week to yet another truly beautiful Greek island, Samos! Indeed a country created by God, that’s Greece for you!
To get there we took a Slovenian charter flight from nearby Trieste directly to the island where the great mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras was born 2,500 years ago (anyone still remember his theorem?). It’s only a two-hour flight there. Quite amazing living in Europe when you think that the week before we drove by car from Udine and in just one hour’s time we were up in the Austrian Dolomites and climbing up the side of 2,300 meter (or 7,500 feet) mountains! Indeed the beauty of living in the so-called “Old Europe” (as Don Rumsfeld once called us)!
The Ancient Roman emperors also visited Samos as it was a way for them to get away from the cold weather of Rome, not to mention sacking the island on more than one occasion too. Apparently, Antony and Cleopatra had also visited Samos during their honeymoon. Pythagoras himself left us a popular tourist memento: it’s basically a ceramic cup, not terribly large. It contains several small tubes which are inter-connected with each other inside the cup. Legend says that Pythagoras, who was a very demanding teacher, was worried that his young disciples would get drunk rather easily, so he devised this cup: if you filled it over a certain point the cup itself would basically empty through a small hole at the bottom! It was also a way to teach the young to maintain a certain equilibrium in life and to not be greedy. Some say that he didn’t really event the cup but it’s a sure winner with tourists (including me), as is the island’s famous Moscato sweet wine!
It was the 4th time for me on a Greek isle (and the 6th or 7th I think for Daniela) and naturally, like the first three times, the very FIRST thing to do once you check into your hotel? Go out and rent a scooter, the ONLY way to see and smell Greece (especially when you ride through olive and wine groves, not to mention driving through those very cute small towns nestled up high in the island’s mountains)! And so we ended up in just a week’s time to covering a whopping 440 kms on a 125 cc scooter (and the entire island is like only 475 sq kms!). And yes, every time I’m driving one of these things I sort of feel like James Bond as some of the roads and paths which lead down to isolated beaches can be a wee bit treacherous, to say the least! But we did cover 400 kms on the island of Karpathos and Greece is after all about the only place, at least on its islands, where I feel totally safe zipping around at close to 80 kms an hour with Daniela tightly squeezed behind me too! And Bond also came to mind as one young female bar attendant at a small beach looked at me and said, “And what can I bring you”?, when I went to order my usual coffee frappe’! I thought that good’ol James would certainly have the appropriate and humorous answer ready for her!
The studio which we booked, Angela Studios (no offence to Greeks out there but most Greek cuisine, at least in the very touristy restaurants, are ALL the same, so we decided to cook some meals in our hotel-studio), was very nice. We cooked our own dinners 4 times there so not only did we save some money but we didn’t end up eating for 7 days souvlaki with the usual French fries either. Pithagorio, one of the main towns, was only about 2 kms from our hotel whereas the main town Samos with the island’s main port is about 14 kms away.
As
you can see from one of the pictures, the washroom facilities at times on these
small islands can be rather “unique” in nature, but this is probably due to a
lack of funds for proper sewage methods.
Nevertheless, they do say that travelling is THE best education, and
Samos’s washrooms do also help you appreciate the washrooms that you have back
at home.
The island is littered here and there with ancient sites and beautiful temples (such as the one at Hera which goes back to a few centuries BC), castles, monasteries and old secret tunnels (such as the one of Efpalinio Origma which is 1,350 meters long. Only 125 meters are open to the public. It was used as an aqueduct. Not a great place if you suffer from claustrophobia or if you’re tall as at one point it’s only 1.70 meters high), again very, very reminiscent of old Bond movies (especially the one with Roger Moore, “For Your Eyes Only”!). And the people? Given the tremendous economic crisis that they’re now facing themselves, they were exceptionally generous and also very humble on Samos: three times when we went to go for a swim on one of their splendid beaches we asked how much the sun beds and umbrellas were. “Nothing, they’re free”, was their answer! Rather unthinkable in Italy as near Rome at the Ostia resort the same thing will run you at least 26 Euros! In only one occasion did we have to pay, and that was a whopping 6 Euros for the entire day. And what to say about our studio’s security safe? Ten Euros per week, but they gave it to us for free! Incredible Greek hospitality, and also generosity.
The weather? Stupendous: 47 degrees (or some 116 degrees Fahrenheit) under the direct sunlight, or some 37 degrees in the shade. And the water? Crystal clear, slightly cool but terrific once you were inside. A GREAT way to cool off and to relax. Wonderful also the cold coffee frappes that you get to sip on while on the beach itself (at only 2.50 Euros per cup)! To a certain point, the Greeks’ own version of Italian cappuccinos!
The island itself is located literally a hop, skip and a mere jump (like 1.6 kms, or 1 mile) from a nation that has a “only” 80 million people, Turkey. Yes, right in front of one of the beaches (the small house must be one of their own military posts) is a nation which is always sort of on “edge” with Greece (the Cyprus issue has been going on and off now for about the last 50 years, if not more). Discreetly the island houses several small Greek army bases, one in particular was full of tanks. I presume that they always expect some type of outbreak with the Turks, whom, if I’m not mistaken, had dominated Greece for some 400 years.
We’d go by one of the sentinels that were near one of the beaches (taking pics is strictly off-limits). You had to sort of feel sorry for these young Greek soldiers who would be “smoldering” under the heat and would keep guard over their post. We’d wave and they’d wave back. I think they would have much preferred to be lying on one of their beaches with us rather than to be in an army uniform!
And the picture of the plane taking off? Our studio was located about 200 meters from the beach and behind us was Samos’s airport, only some 400 meters away. Pics of airplanes have been taken a kazillion times but this was a symbolic one. Just a two-hour boat ride from Samos is the island of Ikaria. Does the name sound somewhat familiar? Try thinking of Icarus, and what does it tell you? Yes, that’s where he and his father had escaped to from the Labyrinth of Crete using feathered wings which were held together with wax. Fascinated by the flight, Icarus wanted to fly even higher, much to the opposition of his father. As quite often happens with young sons who don’t listen to their more experienced fathers, the rest is history (as most of us all should know) when poor Icarus’s wings fell apart as the sun’s rays began to melt the wax. Icarus subsequently fell to his death and eventually drowned in the sea which is called Ikario (and the nearby island Ikaria). So while looking at the departing plane go off high into the sky and close to the sun I thought about poor Icarus and what he’d say now if he were alive to see these modern-day contraptions, such as the Space Shuttle, that can venture far off into the cosmos (a word by the way which was apparently coined by Pythagoras himself). Perhaps Icarus’s sacrifice helped and taught modern man a lesson or two that he should never forget.
Finally, I love the spirit of the Greek’s given their horrible economic situation. I saw a guy wearing the “Greek Crisis” t-shirt, saw it hanging in a store and eventually bought it myself. It sort of sums up the philosophy (the Greeks did after all give us philosophy in the first place, didn’t they?), especially in the Mediterranean countries: ok, so what, I don’t have 15 iPads nor 37 Black Berrys, nor to I have a great WI-FI connection and not even a massive gas-guzzling SUV, but I do have some mighty fine beaches, great crystal-clear water, sun and wine, what else could I ask for in life?
All-in-all, from the time we left Trieste’s airport to the time that we flew back again to Trieste EVERYTHING went off without one single hitch. Another great, great time in Greece. Can hardly wait to go back again (all pics by M. Rimati)!
