Samos 1 - Vathy

Our last ferry ride for this trip was a late one - we caught the ferry at 11.30 pm and arrived at our last island destination of Samos after 1am. I still think those huge ferries are amazing!

I caught a taxi to our accommodation and John rode his bike. Our lovely young apartment host waited for us and took us to our nearby apartment. It was 3am by the time we got to bed.

Our apartment was right beside the town square in Vathy, the main port town of Samos. The location was fantastic. It overlooked the sea and was close to all the shops and restaurants. When we asked our host where to watch the Ohi Day celebrations he led us to our balcony and told us to watch it from there!

Ohi Day celebrates the day in 1940 when Greek dictator Metaxas refused Mussolini passage through Greece. "Ohi" means "No". We had seen the Ohi Day celebrations at Nisyros last year so we understood how it worked.

As expected, we were woken at 7.30 or so by the sound of military music. From our balcony  we watched as soldiers marched to the square and raised the Greek flag. For the next few hours, pre-recorded band music was played while the square was set up for the celebrations.

At about 11am people started gathering in numbers, Priests, dignitaries and soldiers all turned up and the proceedings began with a religious ceremony. The priests looked striking in all their gear. 

Wreaths were laid at the base of a statue (of a lion!) and there was much saluting and foot-stomping by the soldiers. It always amazes me how religion and the army mix together so much.

A parade followed the ceremony. Kids from the various schools around the island walked along the main road while everyone clapped. There were a lot of kids!

The celebrations didn't finish until the next evening when the army returned at sunset to take down the flag.

I can't believe how large and modern this town is. It's the biggest town we've stayed in for months. We realised this pretty quickly when we walked out of our apartment on the first morning only to find that the shop beside us was The Body Shop! It made us realise that we have seen no chain stores for months - no Maccas, no KMart, no large department stores, just small shops run by families. I'm not saying that there were no international brands, it's just that your Lavazza coffee will be sold to you in a small cafe.

Coffee is such a thing in Greece. These FOUR delivery guys were picking up coffees at just one of the many coffee shops. This road is very narrow and cars would sometimes just stop outside this shop, go in and get their coffee, then jump into their car again. People in cars behind would just wait patiently.

The use of disposable coffee cups has been rising as we head north but it reached its zenith in Samos. Every coffee shop we went into only sold coffee in takeaway cups, complete with plastic lids. And we haven't seen a single recycling bin anywhere. One brand of paper coffee cup had the gall to declare on it that we should be recycling and using less plastic! It's so disappointing.

I love this trompe l'oeil painting at the end of a laneway.

You've also got to love a place where this is the graffiti:

Here's a photo for you, mum!

The town was beautiful at night.

An interesting aspect of Samos is that there are about 4,000 asylum seekers here. They have come from many different parts of the world. Once they get to a certain stage of their processing they are allowed out during the day but the purpose-built refugee centre looks very prison-like.

I learned there is a fantastic network of walking trails here so I was in heaven. My first couple of walks took me to the old town, up the hill from the modern port. Impossibly, the architecture was a bit different to all other old towns we've been to. There were overhanging balconies and unusual wooden carvings on doors.

The red tiled rooves were cool from above.

A gorgeous abandoned church stood at the top of the village.

Another walk took me to the top of a hill behind the town. The views were amazing!

There's a region on this island where a handful of old villages exist in the hills, a bit like Raches on Ikaria. My first walk in the hills blew me away. The village of Vourliotes was full of colourful houses and narrow lanes and had a beautiful shady central square. 

Around the village, gorgeous buildings, both old and new, stood tall in stunning locations. Many had views to the sea and were surrounded by small vineyards whose leaves were turning gold in the autumn sunshine. Tall pencil pines gave a Tuscan air to the gorgeous scenery. 

My walk took me through forests where the trees were so thick that they formed a canopy over the small tracks. 

The floor of the tracks were paved in a carpet of autumn leaves. Oranges and mandarins went unpicked, falling to the ground where people like me could help themselves. Sadly they were either underripe or very sour. At times, the only sound I could hear was - wait for it - birds!

The village was perched beautifully among the forest and farms. (Sorry for the dull photos - some of these days were a bit grey.)

Full of enthusiasm, I returned the next day to do another walk in the area. John and I both left in separate directions from Vourliotes.

Most of my walk was up a hill approaching the interesting area, not so much going through it. It was ok but I didn't have the same stunning scenery as the day before. 

This abandoned truck beside a dirt road was being taken over by trees.

Occasionally I saw these. Are they orchids? I don't know but they were pretty.

At the top, after I had scrambled up a tiny track, I found what seemed to be an old generator or a water pump on a trailer rotting away on the path. The trailer was perhaps 2 x 1 metres and the total outfit looked very heavy. 

I looked around in astonishment. How did it get here? I was only on a tiny and very rough track. In the end, I had to accept that the new track I had joined had once been much wider although it would still have been very rough. Someone had been very keen to get that trailer there!

There were big views across to the resort area of Kokkari.

Further along I came to a dry creek bed. The plane trees here were in full autumn colour and looked amazing with the sun shining through them.

Just after I took this photo, the path came to the dry creek bed - then disappeared. This was supposed to be a really popular walk but I couldn't for the life of me find the track. In the end I found a very small, steep track of sorts that cut up the dry river bank. I took it but after a short while it became apparent that this wasn't the track and I realised that it was too steep to try to get back down. Just as I realised I was in a bit of a pickle, a large snake slid away from me. Using a map app I saw a track somewhere ahead of me so I slowly made my way up this dry creek bed in the hope of reaching the track. After 20 or 30 minutes I came to the end of the creek - at a dry waterfall. It was only about 5 metres high and looked perfectly climbable so I gave it a go. Half way up I saw some of the rocks didn't look very stable so I came back down. Looking at the photo now it looks fine though!

My only other option was to climb up the side of the creek bed but this was steep and fallen leaves made it very slippery. It was a far less attractive option than the waterfall but was my next best one. I made it a metre or two from the top then couldn't find a route up the last bit. Arrgghh! I realised my only option was to return all the way back to the last place that I saw a walking track sign. I would be really late but I would be safe. As I descended though, I saw a cluster of rocks that I could climb up and I made it to the top! Yay!

Unfortunately, the track I was heading towards had been cut off by fallen trees from a forest fire a couple of years ago. The track was still there but it was overgrown with thorny bushes. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, I found a group of burnt fallen trees blocking the track. I tried to go around them but ended up climbing through and over them. 

Eventually I made it to a place where there was a sealed road plus I got a phone signal back. I messaged John who came and picked me up. I was very happy to see him!

I looked a mess. I had blood running down my arm from blackberry scratches and long scratches criss-crossed my legs. My clothes were filthy from the black soot off the fallen trees and from the dirt where I scrambled up the steep hills. We went back to the gorgeous village of Vourliotes to have lunch at a taverna. I asked for the bathroom to clean myself up before we sat down and the lovely old lady there fetched some white cream to put on my scratches. I think I looked worse with all the cream on me!

The owners here had lived in Sydney for 10 years. Quite a few people from this area went to Australia.

The views over Vathy were lovely from the road as we returned.

John had been doing lots of bike rides of course. After some of them, his muscles twitch. It's so weird!

From this day on, we had threats of rain. I love the threatening black clouds that hovered behind the abandoned building next to us that we could see from our balcony.

Luckily it didn't rain very much as Courtney was going to arrive to join us soon! We left our wonderful apartment (with a terrible bed) and headed only 20 minutes down the road to the town of Pythagorio where we would pick Courtney up from the airport. Woohoo!

See you when there are three of us!
Heather and John