Samos Island, Greece

Ravi --

The thing that infuriated me most about attempting to plan our time in the Greek Isles is that it is impossible to discern the ferry schedule ahead of time. Most of the websites don’t work, and those that do were completely useless in terms of when boats run from island to island!

In fact, we had originally planned to enter Greece from Turkey’s Mediterranean coastal city of Bodrum, into the island of Rhodes. However, the ferry schedule seemed extremely sketchy, as was the ongoing ferries to the rest of the Greek Islands.

Samos Island, just off the western coast of Turkey near its port town of Kusadasi, seemed better connected. From Turkey it was, with twice daily ferries, and we easily arrived during the morning of Saturday, September 20th.

However, onward journeys were more difficult. We finally were able to learn when boats connected to Samos to our next planned stop, Mykonos Island, part of the Cyclades, from ferry agents at the Samos port. Unfortunately, the ferries to Mykonos, which we thought was daily or at least 3 to 4 times a week, were down to twice weekly, and only on Saturday and Sunday.

So we had to leave the next day.

We decided to make the most of our single day on the island of Samos, whether or not the weather cooperated. Actually, a few days previously, a rain storm ushered in a wide-spread cold front affecting the entire continent of Europe. Resultingly, the next week and a half on the Greek Isles were hit and miss in terms of weather, with some days sunny and in the upper 70s, others chilly and rainy.

Our sole day in Samos was the latter, so not beach time for us. Instead, we took a bus to the opposite side of the island, the small town of Pythagoras, named after the famous triangle-figure-outer who spent most of his life on Samos. To placate all us nerdy visitors, a large statue with Pythagoras hoisting up his famous triangle adorns the town’s port. Pictures were taken with glee! [Tim —- A2 + B2 = C2 makes my heart flutter!]

Finally, back in Roman times, the populace built a series of tunnels in the hills to hide from invaders. We hiked to the entranceway to the tunnels, hoping to see the ruins of these vast systems. Arriving at 3pm, we learned that the tunnels closed at 2:45. What tourist site closes at 2:45 in the afternoon? So annoying!

Samos had cute small towns with excellent ports, definitely a nice island we wish we had more time to explore. Maybe next time!

20 Sep 2008