Tag Archive for 'samos'
After the excitement of this morning’s subterranean adventures, the mood rather dramatically changed when we got back to the hotel and I switched on the TV. The BBC World feed kept blanking out, but I caught something about a bombing in London.
It took a while for me to realise exactly what was going on, flicking through the numerous foreign language news channels searching for information. Luckily one of them was broadcasting Sky News pictures and I could just about make out their onscreen text behind the other channel’s superimposed graphics. Although I’ve complained about the size of them in the past, I’ll now be forever grateful that their text is big enough to read from behind other onscreen clutter.
After what seemed like an age, BBC World reappeared and I was able to get the full story. I’d been trying to get through to the UK on the phone, but there didn’t seem to be any international phonelines so the BBC output was an immediate comfort. Thank you BBC.
The conference had its final session and closing ceremony in the afternoon, in perhaps a slightly more somber atmosphere than would have otherwise been apparent.
This evening we went for a drive towards the centre of the island to the town of P�rgos. However, with the roads being as steep and twisted as they were, we decided against staying on until after dark. Instead, we came back to Pythag�rio to enjoy some more fantastic Souvlaki at one of the shops on the main street.
We’ve now been on Samos nearly three days and, although we’ve seen some of its towns, we hadn’t until now seen much of its history. After the morning conference session, we decided to put that right.
Up on the hillside above our hotel lies a remarkable feat of ancient engineering. The Eupalinian Tunnel is a 1km aqueduct dug through the mountain by slaves controlled by Polykrates, in order to supply his capital with a water supply that could not be cut off during a siege. Workers started from opposite sides of the mountain, yet were only 8 metres apart horizontally (and perfectly on target vertically) when they met in the middle.
We enter the tunnel from the Pythag�rio side, squeezing down a remarkably narrow passageway for the first few feet before coming into the main tunnel. Visitors actually walk along a rocky ledge that was used to remove the spoil from the water channel, which lies far below. There are grills in places that allowed to see down to the actual channel. When I say grills, think of a few widely spaced metal bars. It wouldn’t take much to slip though them - thank goodness there’s no such strict Health & Safety regs in Greece to spoil the fun!
After about 100 metres, we came to a large gate across the tunnel and a sign in Greek, with a helpful Greeklish translation below: “Visit is allowed till (sic) this point only according to the Ministry of Culture”. Well, it made me laugh anyway. We proceeded back the way we had come, negotiating ourselves past numerous tourists coming the other way.
Apparently much more of the tunnel used to be open, but people tried to stay inside for the afternoon or overnight (with the temperatures outside and the nice cool atmosphere inside the tunnel, I can’t really blame them) and it was too difficult to police who was going in and out over almost a kilometre. They also had a few incidents where people tried to abseil down into the water channel itself.
Just off the road from the tunnel is the small hillside monastery of Panay�a Spilian�. From the outside, it looks like a normal rural monastery, but this one holds a secret. Behind its courtyard lies a large cave, and within it a tiny chapel containing a shrine to the Virgin. Although there’s a bit of electric lighting, much of the exploration had to be done by feel and the illumination provided by the screen of my mobile phone. See - they’re not just useful for making calls! This find was one of the great surprises of the trip so far.
Yesterday Nick picked up our hire car, which should allow us a bit more freedom to explore the island properly without having to rely on taxis.
Last night we drove to Kokkari, about 10km from Vath� on the north coast of the Island. It�s a small, very beautiful fishing village. Walking along the beach we discovered a small island at one end, accessible via a tiny strip of land. To be honest, the only enticing thing was it being a tiny island with a small ruined building. It did, however, provide some spectacular views of the sunset.
Apparently Kokkari is famous in German tourist circles as a windsurfing resort. Either the Germans prefer to be stationary on their boards or it gets a bit windier in the bay sometimes. Last night, there was nothing more than a gentle breeze. Perfect conditions for a meal at one of the seafront tavernas.Kokkari was a very peaceful place. In contrast to Pythag�rio and Vath�, it didn’t feel so “busy”. It�s clearly changing to meet the demands of the tourist market, but hasn’t been spoiled to within an inch of its traditional life as a fishing port yet.
Just went for a swim in the Aegean sea from the beach at our hotel resort. It is quite different from the seas around the UK. For a start, its warm! Its also very clear - unfortunately that doesn’t necessarily mean you automatically see any jellyfish swimming past, as Nick proved when he got stung by one just now.
Aside from that incident though, it was very pleasant.
Last night we took a taxi across the island to Vath�, also known as Samos, the island’s capital. The “city” is larger than Pythag�rio, but not exactly city-sized. According to the taxi driver, the population totals only 10,000.
We walked around the small backstreets which play host to all sorts of small shops and then had a look inside the town’s cathedral. It was much smaller than any British cathedral, more the size of a parish church. The style was very much Byzantine, with icons and pure gold ornaments everywhere. It was a very beautiful, peaceful place.Nick asked some locals for directions to a good Souvlaki shop, which turned out to be near the shore on the outskirts of the town.
Souvlaki is to Greeks what hamburgers are to Americans or Fish and Chips are to the English. They seem to come in slightly different varieties, but mine were pork kebab-style meat with chips, tomatoes and onions all wrapped in pita bread. Absolutely delicious!After a walk back to the taxi rank, we returned to Doryssa Bay sometime around 11:30pm.This morning was the morning of my
paper presentation (ah yes, I remember: we’re here for a conference
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). It went well, although the audience wasn’t exactly massive. I think most delegates heard the call of the beach. However, for those of us who were there, the whole session proved more interesting than yesterday’s, with some good work presented.
Lunch was nice again: a pizza-type thing with veggies and little breadcrumb coated potato balls. I’m now back in my room, waiting for the heat of the day to pass and watching the build-up to the 2012 Olympic city announcement on BBC World.
This morning proved an interesting start to the conference. It seemed as if the turn out was pretty low. In reality, many delegates were stranded in various places in Greece: The flights to Samos that were due to depart from Athens after ours were cancelled yesterday, a ferry to one of the other small islands did not return last night after a fishing net got stuck in its propeller, and a ferry from Turkey was also cancelled.
After the morning sessions, we had a very nice lunch in one of the hotel restaurants. Plenty to choose at the self-service buffet, I went for lamb (a bit like chops, but nothing like those in the UK!) with vegetables and some wonderful potatoes and onion. I tell you, Greek food is good! Its just a pity the weather is too hot to eat more of it.
After attending one of the afternoon sessions, the lack of sleep really started to catch up with me, so I took a short nap. Now I’ve woken up, I feel a lot brighter.
Later we plan to go to Vath�, which my guidebook claims is actually the island’s capital (also called Samos) by a different name. We’ll see…