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

Fourni

The Fourni islands are a group of small islands not far from Ikaria. Many of the pirates I've talked about in previous posts were based here, so it's kind of known as the pirate island. In fact the main town, Fourni Korseon, is named after the Corsair pirates that lived here. I was looking forward to a small island experience.

Our airbnb host, Dimitris, said he would meet us at a certain taverna and would be wearing a red hat. We had visions of him getting plastered in the taverna while he was waiting for us. We couldn't have been more wrong if we tried. The ferry ride was only 20 minutes from Ikaria and we duly walked to the taverna. An elderly man in a red cap and a woman who was clearly his wife were hovering expectantly outside. Dimitris and Toula were the sweetest people you could ever meet.

Dimitris had a taverna and invited us down that night for a drink on him. We ended up having drinks with him a few nights, plus snacks of course because no host gives you a drink without food. He was on the verge of closing the restaurant down for the season but stayed open that night for us. John had mentioned earlier that he'd like some fish so Dimitri walked across the road and caught fish for him! He used a lobster trap with bread in it and caught heaps. I was a bit sad though because I've seen these fish when I've been snorkelling and they're not in large schools. His net probably contained an entire school and, although they're relatively common, there aren't oodles of them.

We had read somewhere that the island had no cars. It must have been very old info as there were plenty of cars and motorbikes. In fact the first words we saw from the ferry were emblazoned across the top floors of a couple of buildings: "MOTORENT" and "CAR & SCOOTER RENT" screamed at us in huge letters. They were also doing some sort of roadworks along the foreshore so a jackhammer punctuated the relative quiet on a number of days. Cats yowled and puppies barked. So much for the silence we were expecting!

The town layout was very unusual for a Greek island town - the roads were in a grid! I wasn't able to find out why but Dimitris said this was due to the Ottomans. The main street was lined with mulberry trees that had been trained to arch over the road and it was lovely.

Tavernas lined the waterfront.

Photos we'd seen of the main town showed a single pier sticking out into the blue water. Now there are three jetties. The whole foreshore had clearly been modernised recently. A new neon sign ran all day and night telling us the temperature, time and date. Further along was a phone charging station, the size of a small bus stop. It was solar charged with a (probably very expensive) battery backup. How many people need to use a public phone charging station? All you have to do is buy a coffee and charge there. There seems to be so much money wasted on things that aren't that important.

There was a huge soccer field above the town. We thought that was fair enough however we later found another older one in the middle of the island where there was nobody! More wasted money. Meanwhile, people like Dimitris had had his pension cut by the government. It must be frustrating to see such wasted funds.

The restaurants along the waterfront were still mostly open and we enjoyed sitting there each evening watching the comings and goings of the town. We were horrified by the overconsumption of plastic bags though.  Everything was sold in a plastic bag, whether it was water, fruit, or a packet of biscuits. And why put multiple items in one bag when you can have a bag for each one? This has been the case everywhere we've been really. To their credit, we don't see a lot of plastic bags along the roads although a few invariably end up in the sea.

Sunsets from the waterfront area were glorious.

Our apartment was large compared to what we'd been in and was lovely. The shower was tiny though. Like most Greek showers, the shower head was hand-held but in this shower there was nowhere to hang the shower head to enable us to stand underneath it. Here's how to shower in these situations:
1. Hold the shower head and turn the shower on. While you wait for the water to warm up, direct the spray at the shower curtain to encourage it to stick to the shower base and not your body.

2. Wet your body, turn the water off and rest the shower head on the taps.

3. Try to pick up the tiny soap without it slipping through the large spaces between the wires on the rack it's sitting on. Watch as the soap slips through the gaps anyway and falls to the floor.

4. Pick up the soap and swear as the shower curtain sticks to your bum.

5. Unstick yourself from the shower curtain and wash yourself with the soap.

6. Return the soap to the rack and watch it slip through the gaps again. Repeat step 4.

7. Turn the tap on again and rinse yourself off, making sure you don't spray through any gap in the shower curtain or you'll saturate the bathroom.

My theory is that this method saves heaps of water. Maybe we should introduce it at home!

As much as I'd looked forward to a small island experience, Fourni was possibly a bit too small as I ran out of walks that I could do from our town after a couple of days. My first walk was hard but very rewarding.

After a hot slog up a steep hill I ended up at a church perched high above the town. There were a couple of old columns nearby so I assume the church was built on the site of an old temple, which is not uncommon. The views were amazing.

Looking down over the town and another Fourni island, Thymena.

As I was coming down from the hills I walked above a bay where I could see straight into the water. The clarity of the water was incredible!

There are a number of old windmills on the island. I found this one which still had an old stone threshing circle in front of it.

We love how people use roads as their own space. We often see cars parked all over the roads as their owners just duck into a shop or stop for a chat. Things are often stored on the roads when there's not enough space in a shed - even boats!

I was delighted to find this stack of pallets. That may seem like a strange comment but pallets are the lifeblood of people here. They're used for fencing, gates, covering holes on roads and so much more. After stones and bricks, I believe they would be the next most commonly used construction material! And at least these were stored on the footpath and not the road!

The main town is very much alive. There are probably a dozen places to eat. Tourism isn't as strong here as elsewhere so the island didn't seem to shut down as much as others do at this time of year.

We didn't know which restaurant to choose at first so we picked the one where men were repairing their fishing net in the restaurant!

They told us that seals and dolphins eat the fish from the nets and they tear holes in them in the process. The seals in particular make a mess of the nets.

One night we got talking to a scruffy looking man at the next table when we were having drinks with Dimitris. His clothes were sloppy, he needed a shave and he looked like he lived a hard life. Dimitris told us he was a doctor! We watched in amazement as he rolled his own cigarettes and drank from one of the several cans of beer in front of him. Dimitris later told us that he's a very heavy drinker. He was interesting to talk to though. He's a fill-in doctor. He stays on islands for a year or two and moves on again. He's married but his wife won't leave their home city so it's a very strange sort of existence. I was secretly glad that I didn't need a doctor while we were on the island!

The main island was long and skinny with one long arm. It had lots of bays and coves which made it very scenic. We hired a car one day. It only took a couple of hours to drive over the entire island! There was one road heading south, one east and a short one heading north. There were a few side roads off those and that was it! 

There were some spectacular views although the sky was starting to get a bit grey.

The roads were incredible - they were like major highways compared to roads elsewhere. Two-lane roads meandered along the ridges. At Ikaria, which has a much larger population, the roads were terrible! Here, you could drive for half an hour (if you went out and back) and not see another car. The goats used the roads as their own territory though. These were milking goats so they were very tame.

They were a bit too tame - it took some effort to get them to move!

We found a gorgeous little fishing village with people out working on their boats and nets. 

The only place to eat outside of the main town was at the tiny village of Kamari where we couldn't drive right into the village because a couple of men were mixing concrete in the middle of the road, using the road as their mixing base. There's that public use of the roads again! 

I decided to be very brave and have a snorkel here. It was only about 22 degrees and the water should have been warmish but it still took my breath away. I'm glad I did it though.

We would love to have met more people here but the opportunities didn't really arise, although one big opportunity almost did! Dimitris' name day was on a day that we were here and he told us he would invite us to the celebrations. Sadly, he got sick and the party was called off. It was such a shame as I think they had some of the food ready and Dimitris was looking forward to it.

Every time we walked to our apartment we went past this sign. We can't even begin to imagine there being a nightclub here but there was clearly a dilapidated air about this location now.

The island we were on is the main island in a group of them. The only other inhabited one of consequence, Thymena, was just a short boat ride away. I wanted to walk on that island so, on another grey day, I caught the small boat that takes kids to and from the main island for school plus whoever else needs transport. 

Half a dozen or so school kids boarded along with people who had obviously come to the main island to shop. Groceries, in plastic bags of course, were stacked on the deck along with various boxes that looked like they'd been posted. Online ordering maybe?

As soon as the boat left our port it started to spit rain. We disembarked and I climbed up a gazillion steps out of the village. Soon, it began to rain properly. It wasn't cold though so I continued. I didn't have a lot of time as a different boat would be taking me back in 2.5 hours. I had a lovely walk along the only long road on the island to a church and tiny village on the other side. I got very wet but it was great!

Going back down those gazillion steps....

.... to the lovely little port at the bottom.

Another walk the next day also took me down a looooong flight of steps.

Sadly, we didn't time our departure here well. It was "Oji Day" the day after we left and we watched as the small town was spruced up for the celebrations. Banners lined the main street and square. (I'll talk more about Oji Day in my next post.)

Ladies everywhere were cleaning their houses and the roads outside their houses.

This cat wasn't too fussed though.

I initially wasn't enamoured with this island, but it somehow grew on me. Maybe it was the abundance of oranges, lemons and limes growing in every garden yet we never saw an orange for sale. (Who would buy them? Everyone has their own!) Maybe it was watching an animal feed truck pull up in front of our restaurant one night and unload orders, including many boxes for our restaurant. (What the?) Maybe it was watching that same truck back up a road and catch the Oji Day bunting and nearly break a streetlamp that the bunting was attached to. Or maybe it was watching a couple of guys shimmy up the street lamp, bend it straight again and re-tie the bunting, all without fuss. Maybe it was that I started to recognise which kids caught the boat to school each day. Maybe it was the way everyone said good morning to us at the coffee shop. Maybe it was the way our coffee lady would rather us underpay than have to find the right change for us. When I later took the extra coins back to her she gave me a kiss and wished us well. 

I'll leave you with a glorious sunset that we watched from the balcony of our apartment one night.

Hooroo!
Heather and John