If I had to describe Samos in a few words, those would be peaceful, quiet, green, and serene. An island with rich history, wine production from ancient times, and homeland to Pythagoras, the famous mathematician, and Aristarchus of Samos, the known astronomer. But let me rewind first. The date is Friday, the 26th of May and the time is 07:30 when we release our mooring lines from the Chios marina and set course to Samos. We had a beautiful sunny sailing day, with a downwind course and great speeds!

We arrived early afternoon at “Ormos Marathokampos”, in the southwest of the island, a great little place! We spent more than a week in this lovely marina and cute village. The marina is new, small scale but very clean and sheltered and the minuscule village has everything we needed; a bakery, a mini market, plenty of cafes and restaurants plus a large concrete sidewalk where Elena practiced daily her bicycle and her kid scooter, even made tricks! Another thing Elena loved to do daily was to pet and play with the dog of a neighboring boat, named Ella, and often it was the highlight of her day!

On Wednesday we rented an open hood Jimny to explore Samos. Our first stop was Heraion, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a temple dedicated to the goddess Hera, dating back to the 8th century BC.

We then of course visited the historic and rather touristic city of Pythagoreion and the hometown of Pythagoras. There are cobblestone roads, a plethora of restaurants and bars, and a lovely Pythagoras statue at the end of the pier where we could not help ourselves from taking a photo.

Before visiting Vathy, the capital of Samos, we had lunch at “Konaki”, a grill restaurant where we become friends with the owners, considering that we were the only ones there eating, as it was 12:30! We had delicious meat and local wine and went back to our rental to continue our way to Vathy. We did not really stop here, but looked around and then made our final stop at Kokkari, a picturesque fishing village where to Elena’s joy-we enjoyed an ice cream.

We came back to our beloved marina where we spent the next few days waiting for good wind and relaxing. The plan was to sail to Fournoi and then Leros, continuing our route via the Dodecanese before crossing to the Cyclades. But God Aeolos had other plans for us…