Samos for sale! / Fence me in!

Driving around on Samos island, I noticed almost everywhere the signs "poleitai" - for sale, in most cases with telefon numbers on it! Seems everbody wants to sell their grounds or old and/or dilapidated houses and leave the island?!





Another thing that struck my attention: fences! Seems to be one of the fastest growing markets on Samos: buy some property and shelter your territory immediately by building a big fence around it! And of course, typical for Samians, your neighbor will start to build some fence too, at least as impressive as yours!
Maybe the revival of a good tradition on Samos? Because already Polykratos built some very impressive walls around the ancient town of Samos.

Avlakia

In this hot summer 2007 on Samos, I paid many, many visits to the north coast of Samos. And several times I stopped in the small village of Avlakia. This place is not so much recognised by tourists who come to Samos. Most tourists and locals are passing this village at high speed on their way on the main road along the north coast.
You really need to slow down, stop your vehicle and walk down the stairs that lead to the sea to discover the beauties of this place.
Avlakia is located west of Kokkari, between Tsamadou and Tsa(m)bou beach.
O.K., here is my presentation of this picturesque small village and its surroundings. Most of the 91 fotos used for this presentation were taken in the time range from July to October 2007. Hope you will enjoy it.
Then maybe next time you come to Samos, you might want to stop for a visit or even stay in Avlakia, swim in the sea or spend some time in a taverna!

If you want to see the full size (540x438 pixel), please go to:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1387701kwYdyY5E


Online Videos by Veoh.com

Samos, greek and green

Here is a version of my presentation "Samos 2007, greek and green",
thanks to the video platform "veoh" in relatively good online quality (Mike gave me the advice to try this one!)
The 87 fotos used for this presentation I took during several stays on the island in the years 2004 to 2006.
Music is played "live" by a good friend of mine, the bouzouki player and singer Yannis Loulourgas from Pithagorio. I met Yannis in his shop in Pithagorio, then a musical instruments workshop solely, on the second day of my very first visit to Samos way back in 1999.
The music you hear comes from a performance of him together with some of his friends and music collegues from the island at the ancient theatre of Pithagorio, I think this was 3 years ago.

If you want to see the full size (540x438 pixel), please go to:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1337966RTsBdwMa


Online Videos by Veoh.com

Leaving on a jet plane / cheese or chicken

Everything comes to an end, so did my stay on Samos for this year.
This summer I really missed the typical blue aegean sky most of the time during my stay on Samos, only on a few days we had it. Most of the time it was hot and hazy with south or east winds. Beginning of September was nice, I already reported on this. But that didn't last for very long.
The last morning in Pithagorio on Samos, a beautiful morning! After a cool weekend in mid October with several rain showers finally the sky was clear again. Perfect for shooting landscape photos. And I had to leave Samos!


Almost 11 o'clock on monday morning, here I stand on the platform looking back on Samos before entering the door of the aircraft.




German reality had me within half an hour when I realized, that the service on the LTU flight back to Frankfurt had been "right-sized" to Air Berlin standards as it seems (LTU belongs to Air Berlin now).
A quick change back to "Guten Appetit" after a long time of "Kali Orexi" on Samos. The announcement "After we have reached our cruising altitude, we will serve you a sandwich. You have the choice between cheese or chicken" came almost as a shock. In comparison to last years flights with LTU, what a mediocre breakfast!
I ordered the cheese variation of this sandwich and - according to the label on the box - this is what I got: "Sandwich Landbrot Gouda".


Faced with such a splendid meal I couldn't resist and took a photo of that well contained and quality asured small piece of bread with cheese before I ingested it with the help of tea and orange juice.


I tried to talk about this with a highly sun-tanned elderly woman sitting next to me. She replied dry and cool: "for me such a sandwich is enough! If you have the impression that the quality of service has gone down over the years when flying to Samos, why don't you try a different island next time! Hmmm....

For the next 7 or 8 month, I hope that Mike will put some photos of Samos during fall, winter and early spring on this blog from time to time.

Samos – home of the old and rusty

Driving around Samos island, for sure you will have noticed many old car wrecks left in the fields or under the trees along the roadsides, almost like a big open air car museum. Seems like the samian people want to present their old cars and car wrecks to the tourists who come to visit the island.

Mike has already depicted his favorite car wreck here. My favorite car wreck, a small truck, was located in a bend on the road between Mytilini and the monastery Agia Triada. But when I looked for it again this summer, I couldn’t find it anymore.

It has been removed, don’t know where it is now. Maybe somebody has seen it lately and knows where it is? Or maybe it ended up like many others here - more or less uniformely shaped for easier handling - on the back of a truck on their way to a ferry in the harbour of Samos town.

Well, it took some time to find a new favorite car wreck, so here is my new one! Found this bus wreck at its ultimate stop in a sunny field somewhere in the hills above Kokkari.

Samos, the island of the "Evolution Revolution"

Worlds first stone age mobile phone found on samos island, 04.september 2007 at Avlakia.

Hmmm.... must be a model from "Nokiage", provided by "Vodastone".
The phone bill has been paid with pebbles, cash of course, or like we germans use to say with "kies kies".

The haze is gone!

For many many days the skies over Samos were hazy and the weather hot and sticky. That's not good at all for taking fotos of landscapes. Last evening and during the night, clouds came to the island. Today (Thursday, Sept, 6th) the situation changed dramatically, we had blue sky with nice white clouds casting shadows on the landscapes of the island. And a very good visibility in the afternoon. What a relief!
I left Pythagorio and drove around on my motor scooter to take some fotos. Here are 3 examples of how it looked like today in the afternoon on Samos, 2 fotos show views on Samos-town, the third foto shows the Samos straits with the view on the turkish coast in close distance.

This is the weather I like, but in this exceptionally hot summer I had to wait for many days.