Leaving from Kuşadarsı, not far from Ephesus, we ferried to Samos, which was 1.5 hours from Turkey. This was just a day trip.
One of the churches in town.
Streets are particularly narrow in Samos, so this tri-truck was very appropriate.
We spent the day walking up the hill to the older quarter. Many houses could not be accessed by cars so there was a general carpark. Some people may have had to walk hundreds of metres to their homes. This would be challenging when moving in and out of homes.
This old church was kept alive as it was clean inside with an eternal flame maintained.
Was it the hot chocolate or the walking?
1 response so far ↓
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Tanya
// Apr 18, 2007 at 11:56 am
My version
We were somewhat overwhelmed by the richness of all there was to see in Ephesus, so a rest day seemed in order for Tuesday.
I had dreamed long ago of cruising the Greek islands, and in more recent times had wondered about Patmos, the island where the Revelations of St John were written. The cave where he lived and worked is open for public viewing.
Given our budget and time restrictions, catching the morning ferry across to Samos seemed a compromise. On the way over I practiced the phrases, “When we were cruising the Aegean …”, “When I was in Greece …”
The waters into the bay, that the town of Samos is built around, proved rather choppy, and the youngest of the cheerful British family sharing the ferry with us (and lots of others) turned an interesting shade of green. The waterfront near the ferry terminal is lined with travel agencies and restaurants for people like us, but we were fortunate to discover a private information centre, where the helpful gentleman listened to our requirements (walk, free, interesting) and directed us to the old quarter of the town.
On our way we wandered into the Orthodox Church with its gorgous paintings and mosaics, silverware and candles. The pious popped in and out, offering prayers. As we walked further towards the old town the smell of incense was replaced by the strong smell of orange blossom. It was very evocative for me, particularly of my grandparents home in Murray Bridge.
The houses were piled on top of each other, in jovial community, and we both felt we understood more the strong community bonds and the Greek way of just pitching in to help each other. There would be acres of little houses with narrow paths between them, then a small open block with orange trees, olive trees, and turned dirt, some with tiny seedlings already in place for the veggy patch. As well as the orange blossom (and trees laden with last year’s oranges) there were many of the bushes and flowers we would expect in older gardens in South Australia (or Broken Hill).
We walked past women washing steps and carpets, children playing, the occasional house under construction … We found the old church (as per photo) and were amazed to see it was still in use, given how neglected the exterior and grounds were. I guess its a place for personal devotions now, rather than public worship.
The local museum is apparently amazing, and looked it from the peek we took, but it was going to close shortly after we got there, so we went hunting for hot chocolate instead. As we walked past the first of the closed shops, we realised Samos has a siesta. Luckily the waterfront places cater for mad-dogs and Englishmen, so we found lunch (unfortunately only seeing the nice Greek salady place after we had purchased our flatbread sandwich) and the great hot chocolate hunt increased in intensity.
The woman in the cafe we chose (because it had a poster of chocolates on the wall) looked rather startled when we asked if we could get hot chocolate there, but indicated it was possible, and we should sit down and a waitress would attend to us. That’s when we discovered we were in a Chocolateria, with 40 different flavours of hot chocolate.
Back at the ferry terminal, Leigh surmised that the party of young men must be a seminary group. They were: a tour of seminarians from Rome, on their way from Athens to Ephesus. Our names didn’t appear on the list for the ferry, but were simply added in pen, in response to our claiming to have been on the day trip. The seminarians weren’t so lucky, and we were relieved to see they had boarded after frantic phonecalls to travel agents etc.
The Brits had found a nice beach just 15 minutes from the wharf. An Irish group of young women had obviously come to Samos for the sun, as they started the day with porcelain skin, and ended it bright pink, and seemingly happy with the result.
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