6/2015 - GREECE - SAMOS ISLAND

4 – 10 May 2015

SAMOS, GREECE

NORTH EAST AEGEAN ISLANDS

My very first Greek Island – woo hoo! After a quick and easy ferry ride over to Samos, Mal heads off to find a room here in Vathi. But did he have to leave me stranded in a playground for 2 hours with both backpacks? Wouldn’t have been so bad, but the restaurant across the road was not opening till tomorrow so no coffee! Grumpy I was, as we headed up, up & up another bl**dy hill to the Dreams Pension with its little kitchenette and postage stamp balcony overlooking the bay for a VERY reasonable price.

 Samos is a laid back island with walking trails, beaches & traditional farming practices still intact including grape growing for the island’s wine co-op. Package tourists are ‘locked up’ at resorts along the coast so when the sun goes down, we are the only foreigners here. Finding the bus station, there are limited bus runs around the island because the ‘season’ hasn’t started yet but there are enough to explore the island and try some of the walking trails here.  

  I chat with Demetrious who left Samos in the 1960s to immigrate to Australia after his father passed away –he drove taxis in Newtown for many years. He was lovely to talk to & advised me on a better walk to Manolates, sourced the island’s bus timetable and even paid my fare before directing me where to get off. So I spent a lovely afternoon walking; passing goat herds, whitewashed churches and lovely views of rolling hills through the cool, pine forested slopes which were a delight.

Timing it so I didn’t miss the last bus back to town I was very happy with that effort and next day I ventured further, with bus timetable in hand, this time heading to Pythagoria, but I get it wrong and end up in a small village of Mytilini. Wandering about to wait for the next but to Pythagoria & drinking coffee in a cute vine shaded square, a couple pass by speaking in very broad Australian accents to each other. When they pass by again, I speak to them and I meet Tony & Penny, originally from East Brighton (near my home) who have bought a traditional house here in Mitilini and battled through the coldest winter (with snow) making progress on the renovations. They extend an invite to come back to visit and we make a ‘coffee date’. They are very friendly & I think, very brave to make a ‘village’ change, although Penny’s family are originally from this island. 

Getting the next bus to Pythagoria (named after Pythagorus), I check out the Likourgos castle ruin & I am determined to swim at the beach where there are many Europeans sunning themselves. That water was ice cold freezing and the scene with private yachts marinas and more cafes/restaurants & bars than you could ever see being filled, look ready for customers. Thank goodness we are early in the tourist season!

 

Another trip, this time to get the once a week bus up to Vourliates, which is another lovely village, quite isolated but after walking for an hour or so uphill, we give up on getting to the isolated monasteries that we can spot way up yonder – with so few buses running we calculate time will not be our friend to get the last bus back, so it’s back to the village square for coffee & cake to meet the café owner who spent much of her life in Australia, but has returned to Vourliates! Trying to follow a walking path downhill to Kokkari, a village on the coast we soon find we are following mountain contours to heavens knows where! Catching up with another couple, who I hope have come from Kokkari & can direct us back. But no, they are hopelessly lost and ask us the way! We make a few calculations and keep walking, following paths which reach an estate where we can cut through to the highway. Of course the last bus has long gone, so out go our thumbs to hitchhike and we get a lift all the way to Vathi from the Islands’ CocaCola rep, in his lovely red sports car.

Saturday is our coffee date with Penny & Tony in Mytilini. Waiting for the bus in Vathi, I talk with a gorgeous South African woman who had an amazing story of how she has ended up running a hotel here on Samos – working in Durban, she met a Greek ‘god’ and they married shortly afterwards. He ran an Audi dealership, the perfect thing to sell to well off Sth Africans at a large profit and they had a great life together, but then he up & suddenly died. So after a few years grieving, she put her money together & bought a hotel here on Samos, which she operates 6 months of the year as a ‘boutique’ destination and spends the other 6 months travelling to fav spots around the world. This year she spent winter in Southern Italy. I found her fascinating to talk to, not least for the way she was striving successfully to create a new life on her own. She offers to refer good trades people to Penny & Tony, after her many efforts at renovating & maintaining her hotel here. 

 Another bus ride through the lovely Samos countryside, Penny & Tony show us their lovely house, but my word, it does still require quite a bit of work, even though they have achieved many repairs, it is slow going for them. Back in the square we all have a great chinwag together for several hours over a lovely lunch. Soon enough we bid farewell to catch the last bus, with Penny kindly inviting me back anytime. Alas it’s soon obvious we have missed the only bus back and wander to one end of town to hitchhike back to Vathi. A couple walk past with a GPS in town so I guess correctly that they are geocachers & talking to them, there are two caches here. How much fun that would add to travelling? A car eventually passes to give us a lift, but he is only going so far & advises us to go to the other end of town, where lifts will probably go all the way to Vathi – so we do & soon get a lift from a lovely German woman, living in Mitilini for over 10 years now – I am still not very confident at hitchhiking these day so it is a relief to be heading back because it is a very long walk back.

We decide to stay longer in Samos than we originally planned, the island is very peaceful, our room is reasonably priced and the weather is warming up. Although, we do find some of the ATMs are empty, a sign that banks are not refilling them, and the media here is full of conjecture about how Greece can meet EU repayments, if it will and what may happen if it doesn’t. This current Greek government was voted in on the promise of ending the severe austerity measures that had been in place now for several years so we ATM ‘shop’, jic there is a sudden run on the Euro while we are here.

Another sight we notice is lines of folk at the harbour office and we rightly guessed they were refugees who cross from Syria into Turkey then take a small boat to any nearby Greek island to get to the EU. When we were leaving Samos at the ferry port, that’s when we saw the hundreds who had been arriving weekly. They all get a piece of paper stamped to state they are refugees within the EU, put onto a boat to Athens but with Greece’s current financial crisis they certainly had no ability to care for these people in any way. Talking to some on board – Somalis, Syrians, Iraqis, they were headed for the promised land, Germany. I wonder if this refugee flood could be a bargaining chip with the EU?

Ferry timetables - go wither thou wilst

Tamata are these small metal plaques, with an embossed image to symbolise the subject of prayer for which the plaque is offered. They are offered to an icon or shrine of a saint as a reminder of a petitioner's particular need, or in gratitude for a prayer answered.

We're in the EU now

Refugees lining up to get on the boat to Athens

5/2015 - PAMUKKALE & HIEROPOLIS

1 – 3 June 2015

PAMUKKALE & HIERAPOLIS

WESTERN ANATOLIA

Getting the train from Selcuk to Denizli was an easy comfy trip with great scenery along the way. A quick change at Dinizli to get a Dolmus (local transport) up to Pamukkale, home to Turkey’s calcite travertine pools beneath an ancient ruins of Hierapolis (190 BC), a roman spa city and curative centre.

I’m staying at the Artemis Yoruk Hotel which is a little down at heel, but after a rev up at breakfast the next day, staff run about the rest of the day sprucing it up for a small tour group arrival. It did amuse us to see them clean up the grounds and really that evening when the tourists arrived, it all looked very nice around the once sad pool. Some of the tour group I expressed some surprise that the hotel was rated 4 star in their itinerary  ;-)

Pamukkale is certainly a local tourist favourite and the lake fed by the travertine waters provide hours of people watching opportunities the first evening we are there. 

 

Next day I get a dolmuş direct to the top gate of the Hierapolis site, which continues onto the Travertine complex. From there I plan to walk down through the travertines back into town and save myself a 2km uphill hike. It’s a lovely sunny day and the Hierapolis site was a very peaceful site with the Necropolis chock full of sarcophagus, a great theatre and great views of the surrounding mountains up north – is that snow I spy from afar? Hoping that will all be melted by the time get there in a few months’ time. The ruins are many but easy to walk around – a theatre, an agora (market street), arches and entry gates.

 

Then there are heaps of paragliders jumping off the 500m mountain behind and taking in great views of the countryside as they ride the thermals & soar over the ruins & terraces. Occasionally they land within the ruins and security staff are on hand to ensure they don’t hang about without buying a ticket and hustle them off site.

Pamukkale always looked so lovely in older tourist promotions. But the reality now is a little different. The main calcium travertines are off limits to bathing and wallowing, although this doesn’t seem to stop some tourists from clambering over for photos, only to be wearily hauled back by security staff. 

The few travertine pools looked fab in the sunshine although hard to photograph and there is ample opportunity to get my feet wet on the walk downhill and feel the soggy calcium which is surprising slippery. Being bright white & reflecting the sun, just like snow makes the cool water very inviting to stay a while to dangle your toes before the long walk downhill. It was also lovely watching large groups & families having so much fun here. But I remain a little suspicious of the overall health of the travertines – I think it may take a long time for them to recover from the previous tourist abuse, but at least there a few intact terraces and that’s another tick off on my bucket list.

3 June 2015

KUŞADASI

Easy trip back in reverse with a train back to Selçuk then dolmuş on to Kuşadasi to find a cheap pension UP another bl**dy hill. And on the way, trying to communicate to a partially deaf travelling partner who keeps traipsing off in the wrong direction all became quite frustrating this afternoon. Staying at the Ozhan Pansiyon, simple & clean albeit with an elusive breakfast but they did have the most amazing 3d business cards! Kuşadasi is a very popular package tour/resort town and a regular stop for the cruise ships so the town is geared up for every nationality & their shopping preferences. If you’re American, you want summer sportswear and brand name shoes, if you’re Russian, you must want leather & fur coats and doesn’t everyone want expensive brands of jewellery? But we have come to Kuşadasi as a jumping off point to enter into Greece, via some of the Greek islands so nothing of interest for us, other than getting booked onto the 9am ferry tomorrow. But there is a locked castle that gets lit up at night.

My original plans always included visiting Rhodes but as it’s only an hour ferry boat trip to Samos Island in the Aegean Sea from here, it seems too easy pop over and have a look at Greece. So with a lot of internet research and map checking we think we have a vague itinerary planned, that includes to the famed Santorini and Rhodes islands on a timeline that should give us a month before returning to Turkey further east along the coast. We also have our fingers crossed that we might be ahead of the popular summer tourist season by month or so which may ease our hip pockets a little as we anticipate a cost hike from Turkish prices. Of course, there is already a lot of news about Greece not making their next repayment to the EU and beginning negotiations so we will be watching online news closely and keeping a pocket full of Euros, jic those banks suddenly close and leave us stranded.