Samos Island tour
Sunday 8th September, 2013.
We joined the Cruising Association island tour and had a great day touring the island from 9 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. in small mini vans.
The island has beautiful coves, clear water and is famous for its own wine produced on the island. After visiting Efpalineio Orygma which is a 1,040 metre aqueduct ranking as one of the premier engineering feats of the ancient world. Designed by the engineer Eupalinos and built by hundreds of slaves between 529 and 524 BC the tunnel guaranteed ancient Samos a water supply in times of siege. Eupalinos’s surveying was so accurate that when the work crews met having begun at opposite sides of the mountain their vertical error was nil. We walked along the ledge used to remove rubble from the channel below. Half the total length is open to visitors with grilles to protect you from you from the worst drops of water.
Some of the small towns on the north coast are good for beaches and the view over to Turkey. High in the mountains we stopped for lunch at a restaurant and they presented local dishes for everyone to try. Some of the best food we have enjoyed in Greece.
We passed the ruins of a castle where Cleopatra and Mark Anthony spent time before we went on the Moni Megalis Panagias monastery founded by two hermits from Asia Minor. It is the second oldest on the island and has the best surviving frescoes from that period.
The afternoon tour took us to a honey and herb centre and later a ceramics workshop where we saw the pottery ready to cover out of the kilns. On the way back to Pithagoreio we went past the airport and saw a plane take off.
A little way along the harbour wall is a trip both and on board he keeps two small goats!
Monday 9th September, 2013.
There is a fire on the north coast and the two sea planes are filling up just outside the harbour. Fires are an annual event here on the island we were told yesterday. We could smell it in the air.
