Pappa beach in Ireon

Pappa beach is a small beach located a couple of hundred meters south of the village of Ireon. Almost every time I come to Samos in the high summer season, I spent some time there and drink a beer or two in the tavern on the beach. Meeting friendly people over there, like Costas, lively Maria and charming Venetia!






A very good panoramic impression of this beach, taken from a different perspective, was published by Patrick Vincent Meier in 2009.

Some more impressions are shown in this video from visits in July 2010:

Samos, a rising holiday destination?

According to an online voting organized during the "Philoxenia 2010" exhibition in Thessaloniki, Samos is/was the rising coastal holiday destination 2010 and among the five most popular tourist destinations in Greece for a seaside holiday.

Here is the table with the result of the voting

The number of voters who took part in this online voting were not revealed.

Here is the link to the website of the Philoxenia Expo 2010 meeting/exhibition, which ended on November 21st.

According to the list of exhibitors, the prefecture of Samos took part in Pavillon 10 with Stand 17.

You can congratulate Michalis Toanoglu of Euroxenia, who is in charge for tourism development at the prefecture of Samos, on his facebook site

Unfortunately, there was another real world trend in 2010: while island destinations like Rhodos and Santorini had a significant plus in numbers of visitors over the whole tourist season, the number of passengers who arrived by plane on the island of Samos decreased by approx. 6 percent in 2010 as compared to 2009. Here Samos is another leader, but this time with the highest decrease in 2010 with regards to tourists coming by plane!

Could it be the case, that people really like the beautiful and green island of Samos a lot and carry the lovely island in their hearts, but don't want to spend (more) money for a holiday there?

In the realm of Damselflies on Samos

In the shady valleys, along brooks on Samos (e.g. Potami, Amfilissos, Imvrasos ...) most probably you will find the beautiful bluegreen or brown metallic-shimmering damselflies (beautiful demoiselle, Calopterix virgo).







Come and observe them "on location" during your holiday stay on the east aegean island of Samos in Greece!

Approaching Samos by airplane

Sitting in a charter flight coming from Germany, flying over the south coast of Samos near Pythagorio on a beautiful early morning (7:34 am) in October. View towards the west along the coastline to the village of Ireon, the central southern part of the island and the islet of Samiopoula.
The high mountains of the Kerkis massive are in the background, in the right upper half of the photo, above the winglet of the airplane.

Here are more photos:

7 o'clock in the morning, high above the aegean sea on our way to Samos:



Flying along the northwest coast looking down on the Seitani coast, the massive range of Kerkis mountains and the archipelago of Fourni in the background (7:30 am)



Crossing the island, view again to the west (7:31 am):



After crossing the complete island, flying further southwards over the aegean sea, almost reaching the island of Agathonisi, then turning around and flying northbound, here we are now again over Samos, flying almost directly over Ireon. The high mountain in the background on the upper right side of the photo is Cape Mykale on the turkish coast:



A few seconds away from touching the runway (7:42 am)

Balos beach, part 2

Here is the long version of the video about my visits to Balos beach in October.