|
Map of Samos Island
Samos
The relaxed, laid-back island of Samos
lies in the East of the Agean Sea, only 2.5km from the coast of
Turkey. Samos is a relaxed, laid-back island and is only 40km by
20km. The whole island is barley 40km long and 20km wide and with
its reasonably good road system and infrastructure is easy to tour
and explore. The island is fairly fertile; the countryside is made
up of rolling hills, olive groves and vineyards with its highest
peak, Mt Kerkis, standing at 4686ft.
Samos used to be a wealthy island up until Athens became more
powerful, but nowadays is more geared towards tourism with the
main local produces being wine and honey. Most of Samos` holiday
resorts are at the Eastern side of the island and on both the
North and South coasts.
Blue Flag beaches in Samos Islands Greece
-Municipality of Pythagorio
Pythagorio
Ireon
Potokaki 1
Potokaki 2
Night Life in
Samos
Whenever I mention the name to anyone, I
invariably get a blank look unless the person has been there.
Samos does not figure in Anglo-Saxon consciousness the way
Corfu, Crete or Mykonos do. It's too workaday, too large, too
fertile and well-watered to conform to the toytown image of a
typical holiday island. And, unlike Kefallonia, Samos has yet to
find its Louis de Bernières-like bard, with the reputation that
would ensue. Seven years ago, after considering a move to
another island, I renewed my commitment here by buying an old
cottage high up in Ano Vathy, the traditional hill village
inland from the port-capital of Vathy. Agreeing a price,
securing the necessary permit - Samos is a sensitive border
area, with foreigners forbidden to own property until recently -
and scraping together the money took eighteen months; making the
place habitable took over three more years. I had essentially
bought four stone walls held together by mud and old-fashioned
horsehair plaster, some valuable antiques amongst the debris
inside, plus a large narrow garden with some decrepit grape
vines.
The cottage faces west towards 3500ft-high Mt Ambelos and the
open sea, with Turkey visible on clear days. Although it's
free-standing - a rarity in Greek villages - I am inevitably in
close contact with my neighbours, all widows. Evhari lives
below, across the narrow walkway which ends at my front steps,
and I look over her rooftiles towards the bay; I wish her a long
life, since I know her son intends to knock down her house
eventually and erect some two-storey monstrosity which will
block my view. Sofia is to the west, her house limiting my
courtyard; she has periodic 'visitation' rights to repaint the
wall. Over six years it has gone from brown to grey to
yellow-beige, the current shade applied over a complete
replastering done in my absence.
Behind my rear garden wall dwells long-suffering Patra (short
for Cleopatra) and her bachelor son Panayis. Patra is the soul
of kindness, but Panayis is the village drunk; every week in
summer they engage in the most fearful rows - or rather, Panayis
berates his mum in blasphemously obscene monologues. I have
planted a jasmine vine in the old toilet pit at the back of the
garden, both to fill the gap in the rear wall which they have
slyly opened to get a sea-view, and to dispense a bit of
aromatherapy with its hopefully calming scent. I am usually on
good terms with everyone (except Panayis), a diplomatic
balancing act requiring formulaic greetings, ritual offerings
from my seasonal vegetable patch, and scrupulous adherence to
village bylaws (no noise from 3-5pm, or after midnight).
My neighbours approve strongly of my presence and the
renovation; they consider that the area loses status through the
number of derelict houses, and gains in prestige from a careful
restoration job. The goodwill I enjoy has enabled me to perform
work without the theoretically required permits. But I know that
acceptance is conditional on behaving better than the average
villager; foreigners are always held to higher standards. My
neighbour to the east, 200m distant, earned widespread
disapproval by erecting an illegal three-storey apartment
building, appropriating a fair amount of municipal land in the
process. My only foray into the opportunistic land-grabbing that
characterizes Greek rural life - fencing off the patch of land
(ownership uncertain) next to my house, to dissuade Evhari's son
from bulldozing a road beneath my east windows - provoked such a
response from him (and 84-year-old Barba Grigoris, who grazes
his goats there) that I backed down, not wishing to risk
denunciation and the loss of my permit-free status.
Rough Guide duties and my own preference mean that I'm here
nearly four months a year, not necessarily the warmest ones:
early May to early July, late August to mid-October, and a
couple of weeks in late January to early February. With the
first substantial October rains, folks in the know head for the
mountain forests and, shortly after, a handful of stalls at the
market by Vathy cathedral begin to feature enormous edible
mushrooms. By January, the market is selling local sweet white
radishes, rocket, Kos lettuce, huge bunches of spinach and an
array of wild greens called horta, comprising species like vlita,
vroubes, ovries, radhikia or antidhia. I've bought a Greek
cookery book telling me how to prepare all these marvels, which
I wash down with marvellous sherry-like wine from the next
valley.
Except for a few balmy weeks in January or Febuary, winter is
mostly about cold, damp and rain. Cast-iron wood stoves appear
in the bazaar by October, as central heating is still
nonexistent, and the buzz of chainsaws and wisps of chimney
smoke soon follow. On north-facing slopes, the damp exacts a
terrible toll among the susceptible elderly, with the rain
falling in biblical quantities - older inhabitants still
remember a forty-day 'monsoon' - often accompanied by the most
violent electrical storms I've seen on five continents. My
girlfriend thought I was exaggerating until we sat through a
thunderstorm that fried all the lightbulbs, even those not in
use, in the isolated villa I was renting while restoration of my
cottage proceeded. I didn't take the hint; that December, in my
absence, the villa took a direct hit, which set my fax on fire,
the blaze and smoke damage destroying a fair proportion of my
possessions. The new cottage has the best anti-lightning
circuitry available, and when I'm not here the fax machine is
firmly disconnected.
|
|
