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)
As last year, together with the musician Dimos, I payed several visits to the south coast ending up on Balos beach. Especially during the days from October 4th to October 11, there was almost perfect weather for taking photographs.
If you have never been there, come with us, take a seat in the Sam Giggle Street View Car ;-), Dimos is the driver! We're leaving the road between Koumeika and Ormos Marathókampos and within 2,5 minutes we drive down the hill on the "highway to Balos" to reach the beach:
Balos beach beginning of October, perfect weather for taking photos and swimming in the warm sea:
Balos beach, middle of October:
The huge Kerkis mountain range hidden by clouds:
Let's see how the waves are rolling ashore:
Balos beach in the evening:
On October 16th, we were lucky to find Stellas cypriot restaurant still to be open. We were the only guests there and had a really good time with the son of Stella, who speaks fluently german. Besides a special and very tasty cypriot salad, I liked the grilled Halloumi cheese (Greek: χαλούμι), chicken in lemon sauce and hot peppermint tee.
Leaving the beach, the sea and Balos again, going up the road to Koumeika! You have two choices here:
Leaving Balos in the early afternoon:
Or leaving Balos in the late afternoon! Everything seemed to be prepared, we had cleaned the car windows thoroughly. When we started driving, the mp3 player first delivered only one channel and then only noise! We stopped, turned around and started anew. While turning around, one of the blossoming trees shed a lot of stuff over the car and the front window. O.k., we let it be like that.
These two photos show the harbour front of Pythagorion on Saturday morning, October 16th, 2010, before the heavy thunderstorm came. Already during the night it had been raining. Later on this Saturday, after 11:15 am, I experienced for the first time a thunderstorm with almost torrential rainfalls on Samos while driving in a car on the road between Pythagorion and Vathy (Samos-town).
Leaving Samos-town:
Entering Pythagorion:
In Pythagorion we stopped on the main road whilst the rainfall was getting stronger and stronger. Until the main road looked like a river! Even hail came down for a short time at approx. 01:30 pm.
Here you can see how it looked like after the rain stopped:
For people living on Samos this might be nothing new, because they already experienced it in the wintertime many times. But for me it was quite a new Samos experience!
25.300 views for "Rebetika Tragoudia / Rebetika (Rebetic) Songs" A video about the music of Jiannis Loulourgas, a luthier, singer and bouzouki player from Pythagorio on Samos island.
Sort of a rising star is the video about the visit of the mega-yacht "Al Mirqab" in Pythagorio (2.900 views since it was published on June 19th, 2010:
On the Vimeo platform I have established a channel called "Experience Samos" with many videos and presentations of Samos.
The strait of Samos or Mycale Strait (in greek: Stenó Sámou, in turkish: Dar Bogaz). Where Greece with the island of Samos is at its closest distance to Turkey in the aegean sea!
Along the south-eastern coast line of Samos, there are several bays. Three of them are easily accessible via asphalt roads. Besides the well known Psili Ammos Bay with fine sandy beach and several taverns and the picturesque bay of Posidonio, a less known place is Klima bay with a nice beach and two taverns (watch video below too!).
The Samos strait near Psili Ammos:
The Samos strait near Klima:
The Samos strait near Posidonio:
Only bad and dusty (or muddy after rain) dirt roads lead through the area between Psili Ammos and Klima on the south-east coast of Samos. Driving along there is rather adventureous, and it always feels like looking down on a lake, with the high mountains of the turkish coast on the opposite side.
Photos of the Metziki area (Akra Metziki):
The western end of the strait of Samos. The small island (with a lighthouse) belongs to Turkey and is opposite of Psili Ammos beach.
Some videoclips I took this year in the south-east of Samos:
Well, how narrow is this channel between Europe (Greece) and Asia Minor (Turkey) at its closest distance?
I’ve done some searches in the internet and obtained differing data. A range from 1,2 kilometers to approx. 2 kilometers is offered for the closest distance!
meandertravel says:
The island Samos lies in the heart of Central Aegean, 1200 meters from the shore of Asia Minor.
Many people with german websites just copy the text from the german Wikipedia site, which states 1,3 km. The english version of Wikipedia interestingly allows 1,6 kilometers for the closest distance!
As does the EUROPÄISCHES SEGEL-INFORMATIONSSYSTEM which states 1,68 kilometer! (in german):
„Die Straße ist an der engsten Stelle 0,9 nm (=1,68km) breit und 2,99 nm (=5,64km) lang.“
The World Cruising Wiki says:
The Mycale channel, which is 1 nM wide, separates the two countries, ...
Partsafas K. Stillianos, head of the Samos port authority, is cited to have said:
“Samos is very close to Turkey. This is why we deal with so many illegal immigrants. At its closest point in the Samos Strait, Greece and Turkey have just 0.6 nautical miles between them,” ....
Samosin.gr site says:
„To the East of Samos is Turkey and Asia Minor, from which Samos is separated by the “Eptastadio” channel, (called Dar Bogaz in Turkish) whish is only 1650 meters wide at its narrowest point.“
I even found a statement saying this:
„In fact, Samos is only 2km from Turkey at its closest point, but to be honest, as far as I could see, Samos could be 2km of the coast of France for all the Turkish influence in evidence!“
Nowadays, Google helps us to find out ourselves what is the closest distance between Samos and the turkish coast.
And I remembered the sunset trip to Posidonio with captain Jiannis from Pythagorio where he always shows people in his boat this point on the south-east coast of Samos.
So, I marked two points on Google Earth in the area of the Samos strait which I think could represent the closest distance between the two countries Greece and Turkey.
The coordinates are:
For Samos:
37°42'17.15"N
27° 1'47.01"E
Decimal degrees notation: 37.704764 27.029725
For Turkey:
37°41'23.04"N
27° 1'51.98"E
Decimal degrees notation: 37.689733 27.031106
With these data I went to two different websites to calculate the distance.
Well, that perfectly fits the data given on that sailing site (1,68 kilometers)!
Maybe others regard the smaller distance between those two islets/rocks in the sea (the oval one in front of the turkish mainland belonging to Turkey, and the other, rectangular one, just in front of Psili Ammos beach on Samos belonging to Greece) as the shortest distance between Greece and Turkey and use this distance.
I'm refering here to the closest distance between the mainland of Turkey and the shores of Samos.
Well, the dense green with many trees in this view to the south-east might be gone now for many years!
The remote area of Kako Perato, a beautiful part of Samos between Kastanea, Kosmadei and the eastern slopes of the Kerkis mountain range, suffered extremely from the devastating fire this week.
View to the north:
As I heard from friends, not much is left of the former beautiful green over there. Fortunately, the outlet of the canyon towards the sea, the area of the beautiful Megalo Seitani beach, and the villages threatened by the fire, Marathokampos, Kastanea, Kosmadei and Votsalakia, were not hurt by the fire.
For those who haven't been to the area of Kako Perato, in my gallery "Along the abyss to the cave in Kako Perato canyon" are some photos I took in 2007 on my way along the footpath leading to this cave.
In addition, I highly recommend to pay a visit to the well presented website of Rainer Kastl, samos-wandern (hiking on Samos) to accompany him on his tour 24 through this area.
The following photos I took in June of the year 2005:
Hiking, starting from the monument on this saddle in the mountains above Marathokampos, in the direction of Kerkis mountain:
In the light of the setting sun on the dirt road leading through the Kako Perato area towards Kosmadei:
multimedia design, photography, videography. I'm living in the city of Mainz in Germany.
Multimedia Design, Fotografie, Videografie.
Ich lebe in Mainz am Rhein.
This website is about the greek island of Samos in the east aegean sea. It contains lots of my photos and some videos & music. Together with my personal impressions of people, landscapes and events I encountered on Samos.
Use of content of my blog (text, photos, videos, audio) only with prior written permission! Please don't misuse my photos and videos by removing copyright hints (even if you are affected by the greek crisis!)
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