Early Christian cemetery

There's an early Christian cemetery on the outskirts of Pythagorion (on the Chora road) that was built adjacent to and on top of an archaic Sanctuary of Artemis. As you may know Artemis was goddess of the hunt and I find it interesting the early Christians would choose this site for a cemetery.

Early Christian cemetery

Since the very early Christians were persecuted and even hunted I suppose it's kind of apt a site used to worship the huntress was adapted by their descendants.

Like a lot of ancient sites in Greece information about these remains was sparse to say the least. A lady at the museum in Pythagorio told me the site dated to the 2^nd century AD.

Burial Chambers

These are some of the burial chambers.

Burial Chamber

Inside one of the chambers

Some of the stonemasonry and brickwork is in remarkably good condition even if it is hard to determine exactly what was what.

Sadly very little of the ancient Sanctuary of Artemis remains visible. There are a couple of broken columns, but any outline of the buildings are mostly covered in vegetation.

Potami Waterfalls, Karlovasi, Samos

There's a mountain behind the beach at Potami and somewhere up on the high ground near the town of Leka you can find a fresh water spring, which feeds the small river that gives life to the Potami Waterfalls.

The walk up the valley to the start of the falls isn't exactly hard, but it certainly isn't suitable for anyone with limited mobility and here's a tip: wear clothing and footwear you're happy to get wet.

The pathway soon gives way to a dirt track and you'll have to negotiate tree roots and boulders as you go.

It's a green and leafy walk, the shade giving pleasant relief on a hot day, especially with the sound of the water making its way downstream.

You'll soon find yourself between steep-sided rocky cliffs and I was reminded of the last time I explored a river valley, the magnificent Almbachklamm in Bavaria; not an obvious comparison.

I was surprised at how small the river was in its lower reaches although bizarrely it becomes wider and deeper as you progress up the valley.

Don't be mislead when you come to the first of the small waterfalls, these are not the attraction!

You need to cross back and forth over the river several times. Wooden bridges are provided, although some of the crossmembers are not secured care must be taken unless you prefer to paddle through the stream.

I was amused by the pile of cut branches, are they there so visitors can make temporary repairs to the bridges?

Keep an eye open too for life in the river. There are plenty of small fish to look at, but also in some of the quieter pools you'll find these:

Fresh water crab

Something else you may notice are visitors who have been to the falls before removing outerwear and stashing bags of kit among the trees for retrieval on their return.

There's no doubting that swimwear and beach-shoes are the outfit of choice since once you reach the steps leading to Taverna Archontissa you'll have to wade up the river.

Rickety Steps

We were told the river water was ice-cold, but in fact I found it pleasingly cool. Also you're told the water is never more than waist deep, but that kind of depends on how tall you are!

Something else to note, the water is opaque and there are some hidden rocks you'll have to negotiate. They are smooth and slippery so watch your step.

I saw one chap miss his footing and take a dunking, I don't think it did his camera much good!

Don't be surprised if you find fish nibbling at any loose skin on your legs, especially if you have any scratches or open cuts.

One of the things to do is take a shower under the first fall. This chap said the water was freezing!

Not everyone agreed. This guy kept asking for the soap.

Sadly this was as far as we could go up the valley. To progress to the next waterfall you have to climb up and over the first one, which I was not prepared to do. There are three more waterfalls above this one and we were told you used to be able to access them by climbing the steps to Taverna Archontissa then taking the footpath down the cliff, but due to a landslip the pathway was now closed.

Tunnel of Eupalinos - an ancient feat of engineering magnificence

The Tunnel of Eupalinos is without doubt one of the greatest engineering achievements of ancient times. It is also known as the Eupalinian Aqueduct and is a water tunnel some 1,036 meters (4,000 feet) long, excavated through a mountain on the Greek island of Samos.

The tunnel was dug through solid limestone by two separate teams advancing in a straight line from both ends, using only picks, hammers, and chisels in the 6^th century BC. This would have been a prodigious feat of manual labour in any case, but the incredible thing is when the two sets of tunnellers met they were less that 20 centimetres off line! No one knows for certain how they achieved this since no written records exist. We must bear in mind when the tunnel was dug, the Greeks had no magnetic compass, no surveying instruments, no topographic maps, nor even much written mathematics at their disposal. Simply incredible.

Tunnel of Eupalinos

The Tunnel of Eupalinos provided fresh drinking water to the ancient City of Samos, modern Pythagorio until the 7^th century AD when it seems to have fallen into disuse.

For more information on this amazing achievement please visit Tunnel of Eupalinos.

Ancient Theatre of Samos

I recently blogged the world's largest Hellenistic theatre, the Grand Theatre of Ephesus, an amazingly huge theatre capable of entertaining 25,000 patrons. The Theatre of Samos, built in the 4^th century BC is also ancient and Hellenistic, but it is not on the same scale as Ephesus.

The remains of the Theatre of Samos stand within 150 metres of the Tunnel of Eupalinos and approximately 100 metres below the Monastery of Spilani, which overlooks the modern city of Pythagorio (site of the ancient city of Samos).

Like the Grand Theatre, the Theatre of Samos consisted of an orchestra (performance space where chorus actors danced and sang), the skene (where actors could change their costumes) and a kilon (the amphitheatre space where spectators could sit or stand).

Theatre of Samos

Today very little of the theatre remains, just a stage, the skene and one tier of seats, but with a little imagination one can see the importance of this monument.

Tiered seating

Interestingly the theatre is still being used and musical concerts, Greek drama and other performances are held there. I'm somewhat saddened however to note the pouring of concrete over the kilon and the embedding of supports for wooden bench seating.

The skene with modern stage above

Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any effort being made to preserve the remains of the ancient structure. As someone with a keen interest in history and archeology I find that somewhat deplorable, especially since the theatre was listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1992.

Pylons supporting the modern stage showing damage to the skene

I do hope steps are taken to preserve what is left of the ancient theatre, it would be such a shame to lose it.

Thank goodness for memories

It's only been 18 days, but already this seems like half a lifetime ago...

Pythagorio harbour at night

Walking around the harbour at Pythagorio was such a fun thing to do...

A few of the waterside eateries

There are so many interesting places to stop for food and such a variety of cuisines to choose from.

Waterside watering-holes

And of course there are quite a number of bars where you can whet your whistle with anything from water to highly decorative alcoholic cocktails. I quite liked Barfly... they played my kind of music and served excellent freshly squeezed orange juice. 😀

I enjoyed Samos more than I expected to and sitting here now watching the miserable UK weather through the lounge window I rather wish I was back there!

Bored on the beach? Create something different!

The trend toward being artistic while holidaying on a beach has interested me for a while. Over the years I've noted a shift from the traditional sand castle to some pretty amazing sand sculptures, some  made for viewing in daylight:

...and some intended to be viewed after dark:

The beaches on Samos however tend to be mostly stony and as a consequence 'artists' have had to show some versatility. Of course there are lots of stone cairns to be seen:

These little towers seem to spring up pretty much daily and while they are well balanced I don't find them particularly interesting. Just occasionally though you spot something a little more individual, like these chaps:

The tall one on the right reminds me of a child's cartoon character wearing a hat!

Then there was this...

Is it someone's reproduction of a stone circle? It could be, there appears to be entranceway leading to the main construction. Or is it someone laying on their back, those long lines of stones legs with feet pointing upwards?

Whatever it is meant to be I find it interesting. For me it's an ancient stone circle, although not one I'm familiar with. It just has that feel for me. Why not open the images in a new tab, view them full size and explore them for yourself then let me know what you see.

Pythagorion's most famous son

I suspect we can all guess who Pythagorion's most famous son is, but most of us probably didn't know he was a Samian. I refer of course to the man whose theorem is a fundamental relation in Euclidean geometry among the three sides of a right triangle. It states that the square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.

Statue of Pythagoras demonstrating his theorem

A statue of Pythagoras adorns the modern Pythagorio waterfront. People look at it and photograph it while muttering the famous right-angled triangle rule to themselves, but I wonder how many realise Pythagoras of Samos was as famous in his own day as a philosopher as a mathematician. The irony is that many of the accomplishments credited to Pythagoras may actually have been accomplishments of his colleagues or successors. Also that it was Pythagoras who styled himself as a philosopher. I don't suppose it really matters much since almost every schoolchild the world over knows the name of Pythagoras today, so genius or charlatan his name has stood the test of time.

Roman baths and athletic area

Walking into modern day Pythagorio, the ancient Samian city of Pythagorion, from our holiday accommodation we would pass the ruins of a second century Roman leisure centre, Thermes.

Roman baths area

I refer to the site as a leisure centre because for me the Thermes was rather more than a bath complex. These Roman baths included an extensive complex of public buildings and baths, which included the gymnasium, the stadium and the palaestra (wrestling school). Next to the main entrance of the baths, there were vestiaires for visitors. The cold water pool and the octagonal pool were located on the northern side of the Thermes, while the hot rooms with an under-floor system for the water heating were located on the southern side.

Sadly I was unable to gain entry to the baths area and was only able to take photographs from the roadway, but as can be seen it must have been an impressive sight in its heyday.

The site included a vaulted room used as a sauna, which was turned into a Christian baptistery in the 5^th century AD. That period, a three-aisled basilica with mosaics on the floor was constructed around this baptistery. The walls of the Roman baths were decorated with marble, while the floors were covered with mosaics depicting various scenes.

Adjacent to the baths was the stadium and wrestling school (top right of the image below).

I was able to gain access to this area, which now forms part of the grounds of a hotel complex.

Part of the wrestling school and stadium

As  you can see some of the original construction is still in remarkably good condition.

I think it a shame that a hotel was allowed to be built on what is really such an important archaeological site.

The remains of various chambers can be seen and explored - I was not able to find information explaining what these rooms were originally used for.

I am disturbed by the use the hotel is currently making of pieces of stone removed from the ancient buildings.

Stone removed to make tables and seats

To me it seems very wrong that items are being removed from an archaeological site and used to provide holidaymakers with somewhere to enjoy drinks and snacks.