The photographs of Samos are taken in the wrong month and from the wrong side. They show a white chapel on a blue bay, which is true for about four hundred yards of coast and false for the rest of the island. Samos is green, steeply so. Pine runs from the shoreline to the ridge, vines are terraced into the north slope in bands you can count from the sea, and there is running water in the gorges into June, which is not a sentence anyone writes about the islands further west.
The second thing the pictures leave out is the height. The island carries two mountains. Kerkis, at the western end, reaches 4,724 feet and holds cloud on its north face when everything else is clear. Ampelos, the long ridge through the middle, runs to about 3,700 feet and carries the villages this week is built around. That vertical is the whole point and the whole difficulty: a walk here is a mountain walk with a beach at the bottom of it, and the temperature at the ridge and the temperature at the water can differ by twelve degrees on the same afternoon.
The third thing is the strait. The Turkish mainland is a little over a mile away at the narrowest point, close enough that on a clear evening you can pick out individual buildings on the far shore. People ask about crossing. This office does not arrange that crossing and does not advise on entry paperwork of any sort, so if a day over there matters to you, treat it as your own arrangement and plan the rest of the week around it.
- What the week is
- Nine nights in two family run guesthouses, five in a village above the north coast and four near the south coast harbor, with a local driver moving the party and the luggage between them while walkers carry a day pack.
- What sets it apart
- The island airport sits eight miles from the south coast base and thirty one miles from the north one, an hour by road over the ridge. The ground is cobbled mule path and pine needle rather than sand, loose limestone underfoot with shade over most of the climb. Beds are in guesthouses of eight and eleven rooms with balconies, reached from the road and not up a flight of village steps. The week runs from late April to the first week of November, from $2,265 per person.
- What the figure covers
- Nine nights in a double or twin room with private bathroom; breakfast every morning; four guided walking days with an island guide who lives on the north slope; the road transfer between the two bases with the luggage carried in the vehicle; arrival and departure transfers between the airport or the port and your room; written route notes and a paper map at 1 to 50,000 for the days nobody is walking with you; entry to the ancient water tunnel above the south coast harbor; one afternoon at a hillside vineyard with a tasting of the sweet muscat grown on those terraces; local taxes and the overnight accommodation levy.
- What it leaves to you
- Flights of every kind, including the fifty five minute hop in from Athens, which runs roughly $890 to $1,640 round trip out of the northeast depending on the month; lunches and dinners, which come to $16 to $38 a head in the villages; the single room supplement of $415; car hire on the three unscheduled days at $44 to $70 a day plus fuel; the overnight ferry from Athens if you would rather come by sea, at $46 for a seat and $110 to $180 for a two berth cabin; entry to the archaeological museum and the sanctuary site; travel insurance and entry paperwork, which this office does not sell, arrange or advise on; tips, and anything at all on the mainland opposite.
- Who this one is wrong for
- Do not take this week if loose stone is a problem. The four guided days run 4 to 8 miles with 1,300 to 2,600 feet of climb, most of it on cobbled mule path that has been shedding stones for two centuries, and the descents are 40 to 70 minutes on that surface with nothing to hold. There is nothing here for a wheelchair. Village lanes are stepped, curbs are high or missing, and the two hill villages worth the drive are stairs from one end to the other.
Stone, shade, and how far you get before eleven
The paths between the north slope villages are kalderimia, mule roads cobbled by hand and maintained by nobody in particular. Some stretches have been repointed in the last twenty years and walk like a staircase. Others have lost their edging and shed a layer of fist sized stone downhill, so the foot placement is constant and the pace drops to about a mile and a half an hour on descent. Boots with a rand, not trail shoes. Poles help more here than they do on soft ground.
A guided day starts between 7:30 and 8:15 depending on the month and the plan is always to be off the exposed section before eleven. Between the villages of the north slope the path spends most of its length under plane and chestnut, which is why this week works when the coast is unbearable. Above the tree line on the Ampelos ridge there is no shade at all for about ninety minutes, and that section gets moved to the front of the day or dropped.
Water is the thing people underestimate. The springs marked on older maps are unreliable after mid June and two of them are now piped into a village tank you cannot reach. Carry three liters a head from May onward. There is a tap in every village square, the water is fine, and the guide will tell you which of the four is worth stopping at for a lunch that is bread, cheese, tomato and whatever the kitchen felt like making that morning.
The party this week was put together for
The reason four days are guided and three are not is that parties rarely agree about walking. On a guided day the driver takes the vehicle to the far end of the route, which means anyone who wants to walk two miles instead of seven walks two, sits in the village at the far end with a coffee and a view down the valley, and rejoins the party when it arrives on foot two hours later. Nobody has to negotiate this in the morning. It is how the day is arranged from the start, and the road reaches both ends of all four routes.
It also suits a party that has not done this before and does not want to be the one holding the map. The transfers are pre arranged, the guesthouses know the arrival dates, the route notes for the unguided days are written for this island and not lifted from a general set, and the guide is reachable on the days off. A single traveler fits without awkwardness: the guided days give you four days of company and the supplement is $415, which is what the room actually costs when one person sleeps in it rather than two.
Six cells, one for each obstacle, filled where this trip answers. Read the words below rather than the strip; the strip is a shorthand.
- The dates are fixed and short
- does not. Nine nights plus a travel day at each end wants twelve days clear, and the connection pattern out of the northeast almost never lets that fold down into a week. What does
- Somebody will not fly, or not far
- does not. Nothing reaches this island without a transatlantic flight followed by either a second flight or eleven to thirteen hours on an overnight boat. What does
- The party moves at two speeds
- answers it. Everything else that answers it
- Nobody has done this before
- answers it. Everything else that answers it
- The free weeks are out of season
- answers it. Everything else that answers it
- One person travelling
- answers it. Everything else that answers it
What the calendar does to Samos
The season here is longer than most of the Aegean, which is the practical reason this week is worth considering when the free time falls at the shoulders of the year rather than the middle.
- Late April to late May
- Green, loud with nightingales in the north villages, wildflowers on the terraces. Air 68 to 77F, sea about 66F and cold for swimming. Walking at its best. Base figure, nothing added.
- June
- The hills go from green to straw in about ten days. Air 82 to 88F, sea 73F and pleasant. Paths dusty and bright, still comfortable before eleven. Add $120.
- July and August
- Inland 93 to 99F by two in the afternoon. The meltemi wind blows for days at a stretch and occasionally stops the boats. Guided walking cut to early morning only. Add $340, and this is the wrong month for this particular week.
- Early to mid September
- Heat drops off, sea at 78F and the warmest it gets all year, grapes coming off the north terraces and the villages busy with it. Add $210.
- Late September to mid October
- The strongest fortnight for this itinerary. Air 73 to 81F, sea still 75F, the paths empty and the light long. Add $90.
- Late October to the first week of November
- First real rain, mushrooms, thirty percent of the tavernas already shut for winter. Air flights thin to a few a week. Base figure, nothing added.
- Mid November to March
- The island keeps going but this week does not run. Guesthouses closed, the cobbles slick under wet leaves, and the air connection reduced to a schedule that cannot carry an itinerary.
The parts people argue with the desk about
Getting here costs two days and there is no arrangement that removes them. Out of the northeast you fly to Athens overnight, then either take the fifty five minute hop across, on a small aircraft with a checked allowance of 33 pounds that fills early in season, or you take the overnight boat, eleven to thirteen hours down through the islands, which is a real pleasure in settled weather and miserable in a blow. Neither leg is in the figure above. That is deliberate, because pricing a flight nine months out and calling it firm would be dishonest, but it does mean the number on this page is not the number you spend.
The other argument is about the car. On the four guided days and the two moving days you have a driver and a vehicle. On the three unscheduled days you do not, and the bus network on this island is thin: a handful of runs a day on the coast road, almost nothing up to the hill villages after early afternoon. Either accept that those days are spent on foot in and around one village, which many people are perfectly happy with, or hire a car at $44 to $70 a day and drive roads that are narrow, well surfaced, and full of blind bends with a two foot stone wall on the outside of them. Say which you want when you send the request and the itinerary gets written around it.
The request form runs at any hour and never closes. Whatever comes in is read by a person before the end of that working day, and a written figure priced against your particular dates takes two to four working days. This office takes no payment from you at any point: the reservation is placed with the company that operates the week, and the commission is paid by them once you are home.