Samos

As the last island on our journey across the Dodecanese, Samos inspires us from the very first moment. The catamaran arrives in the old capital Pythagorio in the evening in heavy seas. By the time we check into the very fine Belvedere Hotel 600 metres behind the harbour, we are soaking wet. We walk through old narrow alleyways to the castle, to the ruins of an early Christian basilica and again to a good Greek garden restaurant.

Early the next morning we walk to the oldest and longest tunnel in the world, bored from two sides. Within a good 10 years around 540 BC, Euclides managed to join the two tunnels with a horizontal deviation of just two metres over a good kilometre using trigonometry alone. There were more problems vertically: Euclides had miscalculated the gradient for the aqueduct. The slaves were therefore also allowed to dig a trench up to eight metres deep into the limestone at the southern end.

Euclides’ tunnel is just 1.60 metres high and sometimes only 50 cm wide. I do the Quasimodo for half a kilometre and after three quarters of an hour I’m glad to be out again despite the pleasant 16 degrees and 90% humidity. I continue on to the nearby monastery of Panagia Spiliani with its chapel built into a cave. Down to Pythagorio. By nine o’clock in the morning, the temperature has already risen above 35° C.

Good Manolis gets us a cheap hire car. In 25 years and many trips, I have never noticed such drastic differences between hire cars as in this pandemic year. It was always much cheaper on the internet than locally. On this trip, we got a hire car locally for a third of the best online price for the second time. As Samos is really big, the €30 a day is definitely worth it.

Google Maps is a complete failure on all the Greek islands. Not only do you get turn-by-turn directions every time you enter a courtyard – Maps.me does the same. The really bad thing is that Google Maps constantly directs you to absolutely impassable ancient footpaths. Here you often wouldn’t even be able to continue on an enduro bike. Maps.me at least understands what is a hiking trail and what is a road that is unpaved for kilometres but still passable. Our car is already a dust monster after the first day.

Samos is large, varied and has a lot to offer. We drive almost 400 kilometres in four days and have by no means seen the whole island. The sandy beaches are generally found in the small bays in the south as well as directly behind the airport runway. On the north side there are only pebble beaches followed by sand after a few metres in the water.

Samos has a wine-growing culture that goes back over 3500 years and, according to legend, can be traced back directly to Dionysus. In the highest village on the island, Platanos, at 520 metres above sea level, you have a magnificent view of both sides of the island as you wind your way up the serpentines through the vineyards. The barren soils are mainly planted with small grape varieties. Samos is famous for its sweet Muscat wine, which is also an important component of Metaxa. There is only one dry red wine and some good but no longer really dry white wines.

In October 2020, a severe earthquake shook the region of Samos and Izmir. Although no one died on the Greek side, the magnitude seven quake destroyed many of the old buildings. In Samos town, entire blocks of half-collapsed old buildings in the second row behind the harbour promenade are currently being demolished. The cathedral was badly damaged. In ugly Karlovasi, a large part of the church collapsed and Pythagorio also lost some beautiful old buildings.

It’s not just the many beaches, such as the really classy green Navagos beach club, that attract visitors with their turquoise waters and chilled-out all-round sound. The mountains, which are over 1400 metres high, also have numerous little-visited, winding mountain villages to offer. Some are accessible by road, others can only be reached on foot. We hiked several times unintentionally when Google Maps once again sent us onto the wrong, impassable path. At 40°C, even 200 metres in altitude really gets the circulation going. Two litres of water disappeared in no time at all in the very nice Blue Chair Restaurant in the village square of Vorliothes. Another beautiful high mountain village is Kastania, a little to the west – we were really the only people here.

On the penultimate day, we set off at half past six for a long hike. Pythagoras, a critic of the tyrant Polycrates, hid for a long time in the cave 130 metres up a rock face in the Kerkis massif around 535 BC. The ascent has just been made easier by a staircase subsidised by the EU, but it is still a tough climb. The approach is via a narrow and spectacular panoramic road over five kilometres from the small mountain village of Mathocambos.

Even in the height of summer, Samos is still so humid that you can follow a small stream through a green valley in Potami and then climb further up a canyon via several small waterfalls and a steep staircase in the rock face to a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. The 30 noisy visitors in front of the first waterfall are already too close together for us. We look for an alternative access point further up the mountain. However, this leads to the same crowded restaurant. After another 10 kilometres of unpaved mountain roads, Google has once again lured us into a trap. If you really want to enjoy the canyon, you should arrive very early.

The starting point for all our tours was the well-located Kedros Hotel with its two lovely hosts, Opa Ioannis and his Turkish wife Ijlal. The best way to book is to call Ioannis directly, he speaks good English: 30 6934 1327 22. The breakfast is fantastic and the hospitality is amazing!

Our two weeks on the five Greek islands of the Dedekanes end in sweltering temperatures of almost 50°C on the beach at Pythagorio. Only a few planes take off directly over our heads. What remains is once again the unbelievable Greek hospitality and certainly plus four kilos of weight from the endless number of delicious island specialities to try. Thank you, Dodecanese!