Samos here we go again

This year´s decision to go to Samos island once again came suddenly and on the basis of my previous amazing holidays, although this time, we chose to go with a different travel agency, which might have been a little mistake, as we were soon to find out. TRAVEL PORTAL, who was selling tickets on behalf of leading Czech travel agent FISCHER made changes of dates after what I´ve already paid for it, and then I ´ve also received a text message from Fischer saying that I still owe them half of the sum, which was incorrect – Travel Portal owed them, not me. So, as you can understand, this holidays started off not so well and didn´t continue well either. I received yet another email saying that Fischer has to acommodate us in another building for one night but as a compensation we´ll obtain one day´s car rental for free plus room with a seaview. I was upset at first, but negotiating pros and cons, I decided it´s not as bad, considering that we wanted to rent out the car anyway. So I agreed. After our arrival to Kokkari, we were placed into a different hotel indeed, which was according to Fischer „closeby building“ in reality…approximately 600 metres away down the road, which is not exactly closeby. The hotel Athena seemed nice and had a spacious swimming pool with bar and music, which we really appreciated and went to test out immediately. After that we headed to our meeting with agent Stepan and other two ladies, who were also misplaced from their hotel and suffered similar fate. When I entered KOKKARI BEACH HOTEL lobby, I thought I was having a nightmare. They were just discussing that we are no more entitled for a car rental as promised, that this would apply only to the guests who would have stayed in relocation for up to two days. I was about to jump out of my skin. We got an offer to accept a free air conditioning or free fridge instead (that you should pay for using a fridge was never mentioned in any materials, and I never paid before for using a fridge in any hotel EVER!)
 Also, instead ot dinning out in Stathis restaurant as stated in the documents, we had to eat in the beach bar across the road. I wanted to scream and shout, but I knew that the poor travel agent didn´t know what else to do and it wasn´t his fault. We agreed to accept everything, as we were tired of one hour´s sitting in the lobby and discussing something we could no longer influence. We then decided to take a stroll in the biggest midday heat around the town. When we were walking through the streets, I encountered George and up in town I heard someone calling me out from the bar, a strange familiar voice, but could not phathom who it was, as he had black glasses on his eyes. Of course it was Manolis, who else. We greeted each other like two old friends  with few hugs and kisses, while I introduced him to my boyfriend. We promised to stop by for few beers later on. It was so incredibly hot that we had to move into the shadow and buy an ice cream, which didn´t taste as good as I remembered. Certain things have simply changed for worse. Or maybe you just notice things you wouldn´t notice at first, and maybe you have a sober eye seeing the same place for second time. Some houses have been renovated, there were few new restaurants and bars…but some things stayed the same, which was comforting. For example The Sea wolf was still sitting on his chair in front of his museum that nobody has been visiting. Also the house that me and Sylva planned on buying and turning into a motel, has been bought by some older people and turned into a new household with granny on the porch.

our Kokkari beach hotel 

Greek yoghurt with honey

Spaghetti with meatballs

Ater the walk, we went for a dinner, which I thought will be another catastroph, but it was actually very tasty. The name of the place was SAMIOTISSA and they were to prepare our dinners for the rest of the stay. We got a big platter with fresh greek salad with caparis, feta cheese and bread, plate of delicious butter beans in herb sauce, spaghetti with homemade meatballs and big portion of greek yoghurt with honey. 

Samiotissa bar

Then we took a refuge on the beach beds while watching the sunset and high tide. The next day was our moving day to Kokkari beach hotel, but we would have to wait until 12 o´clock to move out and of course, carry our heavy suitcases  to our new destination. This was not worth any air conditioning under the sun!

Kokkari sunset

I had a big shocking surprise in my suitcase in the morning. A huge ugly spider. Jaime had to beat him to death with my flip flops and then threw him to the hungry ants, who carried him away within half an hour. After this was our first time swim in the sea, which was great – at least for me. There were extremely huge waves. After the cooling, we went to move our stuff to Kokkari beach hotel, where we were met by a very unpleasant receptionist, who wanted vouchers from us and which of course I couldn´t find (after moving and removing my stuff due to our stay in a different hotel), and when I complained about us not getting our proper compensation, she hurriedly and very aggressively responded that it´s not her business. Well lady, if it´s not your business, I will soon make it your business, wait and see, I thought to myself. Sweet old Maria from Christina hotel, she treated her customers with care and love. Incomparable. We went on to take our breakfast, which was total disappointment and disaster. I really could not believe how this hotel could ever get a Trip Advisor award, as the breakfast was the shittiest on planet earth. There was no fruits, no water for drinking. Just very meager , basic and cheapest stuff and what´s worse, this was to repeat without any spark of imagination for another 8 days. I wouldn´t need to be an Einstein to prepare much richer breakfast for my clients if I was the owner. It´s not about money, it´s about using your fantasy. Instead of serving hundred boiled eggs every day, I would prepare half of them boiled, half of them scrambled, or fried. Instead of serving stupid offensive tomatoes and olives, I would excite people with juicy oranges or slices of chilled melon. Instead of disgusting plastic salami I would use the hard Greek salami. And I absolutely don´t understand, why a country like Greece, where oranges grow on trees on every road, can´t replace that artificial, cancerous sugary thing for some fresh juice. Only small changes would do. But this was total blasphemy. While people should be looking forward to their first meal of a day, I´m sure 99% of them would rather prefer to stay in their bed. Thank god this bad impression was slightly redeemed by Samiotissa, who served us decent Stifado and Musaka. After our disillusionment we went to use the swimming pool and in the afternoon I showed Jaime a hidden beach behind the town, where the sea is much quieter. In the evening I had to cultivate myself, as we headed downtown to see Manos, who was very happy to see us again. He welcomed us with couple of drinks on the house and plenty of side complimentary peanuts and melon slices. Manos is purely the best man on the islands, they should make him a saint!!!!  While I was having Sangria, Jaime tasted his first Ouzo and tried to compare it to the Colombian Aguardiente, which is similar in taste. Manos always stopped for a little chit chat between serving his customers. It was so nice to see him after five long years. He is like one of the island´s own characters, he just belongs in this pictoresque village like a cartoon character. When we were leaving the main square, I noticed there were lot less tourists than what I remembered from my previous trip. Maybe it was generally the situation in Greece, or the refugees. Hard to say.

at Manos´s bar having some drinks with old friend

This morning after our „amazing breakfast“ we ventured for a little peek of the local church where was not even a single soul, only few lonely cats lying in the dust of its shadow. Then we continued to walk towards the promenade and its little lighthouse, where we discovered two little kitties with nothing else but bowl of water. I returned there with a can of cat food and two pieces of bread stolen from our lunch at Kokoras, to feed them. Then we went to Terco´s beach (called after me, as I love the waves), where we spent all noon until lunch and then, naturally, had lunch in our „canteen“, where I had to repeat yesterday´s success of Taramasalata. Pure heaven! Afterwards we went to Jaimito´s beach (called after him, cos he hates big waves), and after beaches of all Kokkari, we used our swimming pool dripping with chlorin. We also went to try beautiful CAFE DEL MAR, which is the beach where me and Sylva spent our glorious star lit night in the company of one Metaxa bottle. This time we sat in the luxurious sofa with satin curtains and pillows like queen and the king.

Cafe del Mar´s VIP guests 

Everybody keeps asking Jaime where is he from. I think he is the first Colombian in Greece ever to be seen! One Albanian in Kokoras restaurant asked him, and with his bad English wanted to know how long we travelled, but instead he asked us how much days you travel? So we answered for 8 days. He was little bit shocked and kept repeating „eight days, eight days, wow!“ Well, we haven´t travelled eight days, if that´s what you mean, we only came here for eight days.

Otherwise we´ve been seeing the fires for second day now, there is a smoke coming out of one of the mountains and there were two planes crossing the skies constantly, trying to put out the fire (while I mistakenly thought they were planes taking tourists). We are planning to rent a car tomorrow. The statue of Angelique de Plesibellieu disappeared from the front of the shop and „Smelly“ shopkeeper has gone too, being replaced by some younger woman. So many changes. I think I preferred the old Samos.

So the very next day, we went to borrow our new car. The very nice owner of the rentals asked Jaime where is he from, and after learning he´s from Colombia, he and his wife both oooh and aahed over it, and said „we never saw any Colombian here before“, obviously seeing it as a rarity. We got a lovely blue Suzuki Celerio and drove straight to Samos city.

The town was quite expansive and hot. I didn´t like it so much, as the buildings seemed to look more like war bunkers . I guess I´m spoiled by beautiful architecture of Corfu. The only nice place was the main square and a church near the park. It was too hot to continue walking through the maze of streets, so we returned to our car to refill some water and then drove towards Pythagorion, which is a home town of famous philosopher Pythagoras.

Samos- catholic church

Samos city from above

There was a very beautiful castle with ruins on the clifftops overlooking the wide sea with cruising regatas. You could also see the short stretch of airport on the other side of the quay, near the Potokaki beach. There was also a little tower Logothetis with museum Lykourgos but the entrance was closed. We walked down the quiet street to have a lunch in even more quiet Pepinos tavern, where we had pizzas and cold coke in the shade of the marquee, watching the planes crossing the sky above our head every ten minutes.



There were many boats on the main promenade and lot of wind, so we turned on the heel and went back to our car, heading for Platanos, a little village placed on the top of the mountains, where me and Sylva went for a trip five years ago as well. We just had a bottle of coke, and then continued through Karlovassi, where was a beautiful gigantic church in Spanish style, but closed again. Then we drove further along the sea drive where I wanted to see Manolates, which was so much often mentioned mountain village. The little forest road took us higher and higher, it seemed like never ending spiral and I felt almost like in some Colombian jungle, enveloped with trees and bushes. The view was breathtaking. There was only few cars and a tiny bar serving some snack and drinks, but otherwise completely quiet and peaceful. We could see the not so distant silhouette of Turkish coast shimmering on the horizon. After this we returned down the road and drove to Lemonakia, another closeby beach. And then just back in time for dinner.

Manolates mountains

Pythagorio

Karlovassi

Pythagorio´s streets

Yesterday we relaxed on Terco´s beach with enormous waves and then took off to the swimming pool with all those annoying German children that splashed the water all around like epileptic whales. We went for lunch to KOKARION, which must bet he best gyros place in town and we had a big portion of gyros with pita,chips,salad and tzatziki dip. Really heart warming food. Nothing unusual didn´t happen to be marked upon, however, when we went for dinner, we were slightly worried, as we both wrote our bad reviews on the hotel. We hoped they didn´t spit into our food, as this tavern was part of the hotel. One of the waitresses approached Jaime during the day and asked him if his name is such and such, and when he obligingly confirmed, she said „well thank you for your words“ Which, of course, was a sarcastic and stupid remark. If they really cared about our opinion, they would have said we are sorry that you don´t feel happy with our service, and is there a way to make it better? None of this followed, so we only continued to believe that our presence strongly disturbed them. The young waiter brought us a food and when I asked what it´s called in Greek, he said it´s called Musaraki. Now, I´ve never heard of such a name, therefore I was naturally very suspicious. I checked it later online and there was not a single mention of similarly sounding Greek dish. Also, the girl laughed hysterically when he was telling me this. The real name was probably Kleftiki or Stifado, one of those. In the evening, we took a stroll along the promenade and sat down in Poquito, a new beach bar where was already a musician playing on his saxo some latin tunes. Some crazy drunk British girl was dancing all the time, which was quite funny to watch. It was nice relax, to drink few wines, listen to jazz and latino and watch the waves crashing on the shore.

pescadas for dinner

our travel route we took around the island

Next morning I took my own bunch of grapes to the breakfast hall, quite provocatively. So what. If the mountain doesn´t come to Muhammed, then Muhammed must come to the mountain. Easy. I don´t remember much of the day, except that we swam and swam some more and then went to have a drink in the balcony, watching the sunset.

I have to say, I´m not disappointed with Samos or Kokkari, it´s still that same old beautiful town that it used to be five years ago. But people can sometimes ruin the whole image, or how you feel about your stay. I wish there were less ignorant receptionists whose only response to your commentary is something like: „by the way, the rude receptionist is also the owner of the hotel and we do our best!“….well, sweetheart,actually  you should be rather ashamed to claim that you are the owner. Having a receptionist who doesn´t greet you or smiles at you, or barely opens her mouth when you walk by, or isn´t simply there at all, when you need her….that´s not the best first or lasting impression you want to enchant your customers with, is it now? For me, this crappy hotel deserves no positive feedback due to its bad customer service and here, as I promised to myself, I will not leave stone on a stone, to make sure this bad service doesn´t repeat. My blog is a good way to warn many readers and travellers from likes of such unconcerned hotel staff.

Despite all this, our holidays was nice and we didn´t let anyone to spoil it. But next time, Christina hotel will be the safe bet!
https://www.booking.com/hotel/gr/christina-pansion.cs.html

Adios amigos, next time from Lefkada 
yours Teri