samos-images

Samos "Think Pink" on 30.10.2011

2011-10-20T17:23:00.007+02:00

Εκδήλωση Think Pink


Ο μήνας Οκτώβριος είναι αφιερωμένος σε όλο τον κόσμο, στην πρόληψη και
ενημέρωση των γυναικών για τον καρκίνο του μαστού. Εκτιμάται πως κάθε 6
λεπτά μία γυναίκα χάνει τη ζωή της, ενώ κάθε 2,5 λεπτά γίνεται μια νέα
διάγνωση. Ωστόσο, οι θεραπευτικές εξελίξεις στον καρκίνο του μαστού
έχουν ξεπεράσει τις προσδοκίες και των πιο αισιόδοξων ειδικών.
Καλλιτεχνικά και αθλητικά δρώμενα λαμβάνουν χώρα καθ’ όλο τον Οκτώβριο,
με σκοπό την ενημέρωση για την πρόληψη και έγκαιρη διάγνωση του καρκίνου
του μαστού, την ευαισθητοποίηση της κοινωνίας και τη συγκέντρωση ποσών
που διατίθενται στην αντικαρκινική έρευνα και στην υποστήριξη των
γυναικών με καρκίνο του μαστού.
Η Σχολή Χορού Samos School of Dance, το γυμναστήριο Samos Sport Studio
και Ινστιτούτο Αισθητικής Dermaform, οργανώνουν για πρώτη φορά στη Σάμο
τη δράση Think Pink, στις 30 Οκτωβρίου στις εγκαταστάσεις του Samos
Sport Studio στα Περιβόλια της Πόλης της Σάμου.
Η εκδήλωση Think Pink περιλαμβάνει ποικιλία δωρεάν δραστηριοτήτων για
γυναίκες και άνδρες.
10:00 Έναρξη
10:30-11:30 Art Therapy με τη Μαριάννα Νίλσεν Χατζημιχάλη
11:00-13:00 Συμβουλές Αισθητικής, Henna Tattoo
11:30-11:50 Πρόγραμμα Εκγύμνασης Κοιλιακών και Ραχιαίων
11:50-12:30 Push + Lift πρόγραμμα εκγύμνασης όλου του σώματος
12:30-13:00 Ομιλία από τον Ιατρό Κατσούλη Ιωάννη
13:00-14:00 Χορός Swing
Παράλληλα θα υπάρχουν μαθήματα αναρρίχησης για μικρούς και μεγάλους και
δραστηριότητες για παιδιά.
Στην εκδήλωση συμμετέχουν επίσης ο Σύλλογoς Αυτοδυτών Σάμου και η σχολή
καταδύσεων AegeanScuba.
Μικροαντικείμενα όπως Ροζ βραχιολάκια, μπλούζες, κούπες, κοσμήματα, με
τη Ροζ Κορδέλα που συμβολίζει την συμπαράσταση σε όλες τις γυναίκες στις
οποίες διαγνώστηκε καρκίνος του μαστού, θα διατίθενται προς πώληση. Τα
έσοδα θα δοθούν εξολοκλήρου σε Συλλόγους και ΜΚΟ που υποστηρίζουν τις
γυναίκες με καρκίνο του μαστού.

ENGLISH:

Think Pink Event

The month of October is dedicated to the world, prevention and
inform women about breast cancer. It is estimated that every 6
minute a woman loses her life, and every 2.5 minutes is a new
diagnosis. However, therapeutic developments in breast cancer
have exceeded the expectations of the most optimistic experts.
Artistic and sporting events take place throughout October,
for information on prevention and early detection of
breast cancer, to raise awareness and fund raising
available in cancer research and support
women with breast cancer.
The Samos School of Dance, Samos Sport Studio
and Institute of Aesthetic Dermaform, organize for the first time in Samos
Action Think Pink, on October 30 at the premises of Samos
Sport Studio, Perivolia Samos town.
The event includes Think Pink range of free activities for
women and men.
10:00 Start
10:30 - 11:30 Art Therapy with Marianna Nielsen Hatzimihali
11:00 - 13:00 Beauty Tips, Henna Tattoo
11:30 - 11:50 Abs workout and dorsal
11:50 - 12:30 Push + Lift workout the whole body
12:30 - 13:00 Speech by Doctor John Katsoulis
13:00 - 14:00 Swing Dance
While there will be climbing courses for all ages and
activities for children.
The event also includes the Syllogos Divers Samos and the Dive school AegeanScuba.
Small objects like Pink wristbands, sweatshirts, mugs, jewelry, with
the pink ribbon symbolizing support for all women in
diagnosed with breast cancer will be available for sale. The
proceeds will be given entirely to associations and NGOs that support
women with breast cancer.

Pagondas in the evening

2011-07-13T19:35:00.003+02:00

Evening atmosphere over the village of Pagondas in the south of Samos.
June 2011 .

Looking down on the houses of Pagondas with the mighty church dominating the sight of the village

Potami valley

2011-07-08T00:13:00.004+02:00

Hot Greece and bare aegean islands without any trees?
Well, not on Samos island!

You want to find out yourself?
Then pay a visit to the incredibly green, shady and cool Potami valley with the Potami brook and several cascades/small waterfalls, not far away from the city of Karlóvasi on the north coast of the island.

Walking on the footpath along the brook gives you almost the feeling like you're walking in some type of dschungle!
Whenever I go there, I am always fascinated by the brook running between these strangely formed trees.

Silence / Varsamos beach and Kallithea

2011-06-25T17:49:00.006+02:00

Middle of June we made a tour from Pythagorion to the west of Samos island, going down to the coast to visit Varsamos beach.
Nobody else but us was there, the tavern seems to be closed.

On the way back, a spontaneous stopover in a small tavern in Kallithea around sunset - to record a song video - developed into a gathering with local people and singing a couple of songs together.
Many thanks to the men and women of Kallithea involved in the "party" for the Ouzo and Souma!

"Silence"

Sing along in Kallithea:

Drift show Marathokambos

2011-06-02T17:30:00.005+02:00

I am currently working on the DVD from the drift show at Marathokambos.
Here a short trailer, to order the full length DVD, please visit www.stm.gr or call 22730 35260

Exploring the unique east aegean island of Samos

2011-03-17T12:57:00.008+01:00

Siga, siga ....., slowly, slowly ..., take your time! Slowly enter into the amazing sphere and atmosphere of Samos. My 2011 sort of panoramic photo-presentation of the unique east aegean island of Samos is 26 minutes long.

Most of the photos presented I took in the year 2010.

The music accompanying this presentation I recorded in the village of Leka on the evening of July 16th, 2010. Put on your earphones and dive into the panigyri-like atmosphere, captured when one of the best groups of Samos was playing there on the village square during an event organized by the voluntary fire brigade. I had met these musicians before on other occasions, e.g. in August 2008 in Kallithea (panigyri) and Kastaneá (charity event).

Musicians:
Mavrikis, Kyriakos: main vocals, guitar, bouzouki
Liapis, Giorgos: laouto, bouzouki, vocals
Sarantou, Vasilis: violin, vocals
Mytilinos, Giannis: keyboards, vocals

Giorgos Liapis channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/LIAPSAPAN

Samos is a unique island, this green emerald in the blue aegean sea (greek & green!) is located just a few kilometers away from the coast of Asia Minor. It is loaded with natural beauties and archeological sites and - in contrast to many other greek islands - Samos is gifted with large water reservoirs, partly due to forests and high mountains.
In addition, Samos is famous e.g. for its wines and the mathematician/philosopher Pythagoras, who was born on Samos and lived there for many years.

Many different kinds of landscapes can be experienced on this island, e.g. large forests, deep valleys and canyons, herbs with incredible smells, unbelievable fresh and crystal clear water springs, brooks, cascades and even small waterfalls.
High mountains reaching up to 1150 meters (Karvounis, Ambelos) and 1443 meters (Vigla, Kerkis). With caves and ancient quarries.

Lots of beautiful beaches all around the island. Mostly with small pebbles, but some of them, especially in the south, are fine sanded, named psili ammos.

And many small villages, not only along the coast line. The more you get away from the coast, the more you will find the natural and rural life on Samos. Don't forget to visit one of the many panigiria during the summer season, the celebrations of the patron saints of the respective churches or chapels. The worldly part of a panigyri will not start before 10 pm, usually on the evening before the celebration day of the church patron saint. Dancing begins about midnight and will last into the early morning hours!

Besides the red, white and rosé Samos wines and the local Ouzo, try the Souma of Samos (in other places in Greece this spirit - containing about 40 % alcohol - is called Tsipouro!)

The Avlakia Session: If I needed you

2010-12-21T23:48:00.002+01:00

The Avlakia Session on Samos island in Greece, part 2.

The dutch musicians Ad Vanderveen & Kersten de Ligny and greek musician Dimos Kassapidis performing together, playing & singing the beautiful song " If I needed you".

This song was written and originally performed by american singer/songwriter Townes Van Zandt.

Recorded 10 meters away from the lovely blue waters of the aegean sea in the small village of Avlakia on the north coast of the island of Samos, Greece, July 2010.
The outro part of the video was taken on a remote beach in the west of Samos island.
Link to part 1 of the Avlakia session: "Cloud of Unknowing"

Xenophilia: more consultants than tourists coming to Samos? ;-)

2010-12-05T16:46:00.018+01:00

Good gracious, hopefully not!

Maybe better name the change: "from ego to eco"! :-)

The island of Samos faces a steady decline in tourists coming to the island over the last years. On top of that, in 2010 5,8 percent less travellers as compared to the season 2009 came with international flights to the Island.

This might be interpreted as an indication that the administration - due to whatever reason - has neglected the development of skills to handle the requirements of nowadays tourism management.

What do you do when you don't know what to do?
In a situation like the one described by Carl von Clausewitz: "Nothing is more difficult than withdrawing from an untenable position".

Well, as the administration responsible for this situation - at least in part -, you might find yourself forced into hiring consultants from other islands and/or foreign countries who will design a "strategic concept" for the next 5-10 years.
This seems to be part of the Xenophilia idea of the greek people I think! ;-)

Because consultants are expected to take an independant position and focus on tourism from a perspective other than from within the island to clearly see things the administration didn't want to notice or didn't want to be confronted with!
Well, after all, some Samians might say: all of a sudden tourism went down!

One thing we have to keep in mind though, well, what could we do, if we would find ourselves on the border of the European Union, as far as possible away from Athens, in a political situation that cuts us off from almost all resources and travel connections coming from the near Asia Minor coast and that could help Samos to become a cheaper destiny.

Why do most of the goods have to be shipped via Athens or Thessaloniki to Samos? What about e.g. flights from Izmir or other turkish destinations to Samos or Ikaria island?
current situation here!

Another example: isn't it strange, that as a tourist, you can buy organized (daily) excursions by ship from Samos to the holy island of Patmos or to ancient Ephesus in Turkey. But try to do this while you are on Samos with excursions to Ikaria and Fourni, the two other destinations covered by the prefecture of Samos. And btw., Ikaria has an airport since quite a couple of years already!

In this situation, for sure, the Samians need the best consultants, e.g. "The World Centre of Excellence for Destinations" (CED) in Canada.

First the prefecture called for Euroxenia from Rhodos, then - in addition - the prefecture last year in November teamed up with CED and their SMED process!
See here:
Agreement with CED, middle of November 2009
Report presented to Samos by CED
and
Agreement with Euroxenia

If you study these announcements, you will notice that they are filled with a collection of Buzzword Bingo words I know well enough from presentations of american consultants. Enthusiasm bubbles created by "speech foam".
But lets be serious: announcements are one thing and what will be achieved – despite these type of announcements - within a reasonable time frame is another thing.

As a short example: I try to do my best to use some of these well known "buzzwords" to create a "bubble of excellence".
Let's see what I can do, what about this one here:
Process to foster "Real World Measurements for Excellence in Xenophilia Performance" (RWMEXP) to excel in total Philoxenia. Lol!

The Canadair planes CL-215 help(ed) Samos a lot in fighting many forest fires during the summer seasons. So let's hope, that - with regards to tourism matters - the SMED process by the canadian based CED will indeed allow Samos to "walk upright" again and perform well in the competition with other tourist destinations within reach. Samos is - besides Crete - the first greek island to engage in this process.
And please let it not be another set of costly crutches offered to an aching administration.

Sort of a short insight in the SMED process can be found in the presentation of Manolis Psarros

And, as someone who likes good photos, I can only beg the prefecture: please send a good photo to CED to present the island of Samos as destination on CEDs website. The actual photo that I can see (Dec 3rd-8th, 2010) showing Samos-town and the gulf of Samos is imho the worst photo of all current SMED destinations presented and imho doesn't serve the island of Samos as a really beautiful touristic destination ......

..... with friendly and original local people, like, for example, some of the musicians I met on Samos .....

and lots of good things to eat and drink!

Btw., maybe this is another reason, why consultants (and investors) like to come to Samos! ;-)

But, what about the (N)Ikarians? As I see it, due to their painful experience over quite a few years, they gave a damn ;-) on what the prefecture administration in Samos-town on Samos island is/was not doing for them.

And now, indeed, in a way, Ikarians can be proud, because during the last years, Ikaria was successful in positioning itself as a unique destination and especially in attracting lots of young people as visitors to the island!

If you travel on a ferry during the summer season from Piraeus to Samos, it might appear that Ikaria acts like an age filter for international tourism: almost all who are below the age of thirtyfive will leave the ship in Ikaria, most of those aged 45 or more will stay and proceed to Samos.

I come to the island of Samos by plane via direct charter flights from Frankfurt, many, many times since 1999. And of course, I'm way beyond 45! :-)

Wet experience!

2010-10-20T18:35:00.010+02:00

These two photos show the harbour front of Pythagorion on Saturday morning, October 16th, 2010, before the heavy thunderstorm came. Already during the night it had been raining.
Later on this Saturday, after 11:15 am, I experienced for the first time a thunderstorm with almost torrential rainfalls on Samos while driving in a car on the road between Pythagorion and Vathy (Samos-town).

Leaving Samos-town:

Entering Pythagorion:

In Pythagorion we stopped on the main road whilst the rainfall was getting stronger and stronger. Until the main road looked like a river! Even hail came down for a short time at approx. 01:30 pm.

For people living on Samos this might be nothing new, because they already experienced it in the wintertime many times.
But for me it was quite a new Samos experience!

Samos in October 2010

2010-10-09T00:36:00.008+02:00

End of season 2010 is approaching fast. Every day some more bars, restaurants and Hotels close down.

Here are some photos from a mostly sunny but windy and not so warm Samos at the end of the second week in October 2010.
But the sea is still warm, good for bathing on empty beaches.

Samos distributed worldwide!

2010-10-02T12:26:00.004+02:00

The greek island of Samos in the internet! Lots of photos, websites, travel fora and articles can be found transporting the good news about this unique island in the east aegean.
Some of my Samos videos/presentations on YouTube have reached quite a respectable number of views since they were launched:

15.800 views for Samos 2007, greek & green
17.650 views for "Samos 2007, greek & green" (10 min)
19.400 views for Samos/Greece 2008 presentation "greek & green"
23.650 views for Samos 2009, a fascinating experience!

And the winner is:

26.350 views for "Rebetika Tragoudia / Rebetika (Rebetic) Songs"
A video about the music of Jiannis Loulourgas, a luthier, singer and bouzouki player from Pythagorio on Samos island.

Sort of a rising star is the video about the visit of the mega-yacht "Al Mirqab" in Pythagorio (3740 views since it was published a bit more than three month ago on June 19th, 2010:

Alltogether, more than 100.000 times people were clicking on these videos on the YouTube platform.

On the video internet platform "Vimeo" I have established a Samos specific channel called "Experience Samos" with many videos and presentations of Samos.

The strait of Samos

2010-08-27T23:54:00.024+02:00

The strait of Samos (in greek: Stenó Sámou, or in turkish: Dar Bogaz). Where Greece with the island of Samos is at its closest distance to Turkey!

When driving on dusty dirt roads between Psili Ammos and Posidonio on the south-east coast of Samos it feels like looking down on a lake, with the high mountains of the turkish coast on the opposite side.

The western end of the strait of Samos. The small island (with a lighthouse) belongs to Turkey and is opposite of Psili Ammos beach.

Sunset trip on Friday evening, captain Jiannis from Pythagorio with his boat Agia Irini is on his way through the strait of Samos heading towards a nice night with lots of eating, drinking and dancing in a fish tavern in Posidonio.

Some videoclips I took this year in the south-east of Samos:

Well, how narrow is this channel between Europe (Greece) and Asia Minor (Turkey) at its closest distance?

I’ve done some searches in the internet and obtained differing data. A range from 1,2 kilometers to approx. 2 kilometers is offered for the closest distance!

meandertravel says:
The island Samos lies in the heart of Central Aegean, 1200 meters from the shore of Asia Minor.

Many people with german websites just copy the text from the german Wikipedia site, which states 1,3 km. The english version of Wikipedia interestingly allows 1,6 kilometers for the closest distance!

As does the EUROPÄISCHES SEGEL-INFORMATIONSSYSTEM which states 1,68 kilometer! (in german):
„Die Straße ist an der engsten Stelle 0,9 nm (=1,68km) breit und 2,99 nm (=5,64km) lang.“

The World Cruising Wiki says:
The Mycale channel, which is 1 nM wide, separates the two countries, ...

Partsafas K. Stillianos, head of the Samos port authority, is cited to have said:
“Samos is very close to Turkey. This is why we deal with so many illegal immigrants. At its closest point in the Samos Strait, Greece and Turkey have just 0.6 nautical miles between them,” ....

Samosin.gr site says:
„To the East of Samos is Turkey and Asia Minor, from which Samos is separated by the “Eptastadio” channel, (called Dar Bogaz in Turkish) whish is only 1650 meters wide at its narrowest point.“

I even found a statement saying this:
„In fact, Samos is only 2km from Turkey at its closest point, but to be honest, as far as I could see, Samos could be 2km of the coast of France for all the Turkish influence in evidence!“

Nowadays, Google helps us to find out ourselves what is the closest distance between Samos and the turkish coast.
And I remembered the sunset trip to Posidonio with captain Jiannis from Pythagorio where he always shows people in his boat this point on the south-east coast of Samos.

So, I marked two points on Google Earth in the area of the Samos strait which I think could represent the closest distance between the two countries Greece and Turkey.

The coordinates are:

For Samos:
37°42'17.15"N
27° 1'47.01"E

Decimal degrees notation: 37.704764 27.029725

For Turkey:
37°41'23.04"N
27° 1'51.98"E

Decimal degrees notation: 37.689733 27.031106

With these data I went to two different websites to calculate the distance.

rechneronline.de/geo-koordinaten
I obtained 1676 meters !

with geo-tools/distance-calculator
I obtained 1675 meters.

Well, that perfectly fits the data given on that sailing site (1,68 kilometers)!

I didn't check it, but maybe others regard the distance between those two small islands/rocks in the sea (the one in front of the turkish mainland, and the other one opposite to it in front of Psili Ammos beach on Samos) as the shortest distance between Greece and Turkey and use this distance.
I'm refering here to the closest distance between the mainland of Turkey and the shores of Samos.

Promoting Samos

2010-08-23T12:24:00.004+02:00

I am pleased to let our readers know about a new cooperation i started with the Athens News Agency (ANA). I am photographing also for ANA now.
The past Weekend i covered the Hraia Festival which took place on Friday 20.August 2010 in Pythagorion. I send the photos forward to ANA and they distribute it to the greek Media.
Here are some Links to online publications, which i think, they are of a good promotion for Samos:

TA NEA online

IN.GR

PULSE.GR

STOXOS.GR

MAHITIKANEA.GR

So, if you are organizing a festival, a cultural event or other festivities at Samos and you think it is worth doing a reportage about it, you can contact me at info@art-of-focus.com .
Also for other news worthy topics, i am interested to here from you.

Photos of the HRAIA Festival in Pythagorion:

Pythagorion, 5th August, the Feast of Honor of "The sea battle of Mikali"

2010-08-07T17:08:00.007+02:00

Every year, on the 5th of August, Pythagorion celebrates the anniversary of the sea battle of Mykali.
This naval Battle took place in the straits of Mykali on 5th August 1824. During the Greek Revolution, the Greek fleet under the command of Georgios Sahtouris defeated the Ottoman fleet led by Hosref.
The 6th of August is a National Day for the Island of Samos.

All photographs are copyright by Michael Anhaeuser. If you wish to use any of the photographs for publications, please contact me at info@art-of-focus.com to get a price quote and the permission.

Kako Perato

2010-08-04T20:17:00.010+02:00

Well, the dense green with many trees in this view to the south-east might be gone now for many years!

The remote area of Kako Perato, a beautiful part of Samos between Kastanea, Kosmadei and the eastern slopes of the Kerkis mountain range, suffered extremely from the devastating fire this week.

View to the north:

As I heard from friends, not much is left of the former beautiful green over there.
Fortunately, the outlet of the canyon towards the sea, the area of the beautiful Megalo Seitani beach, and the villages threatened by the fire, Marathokampos, Kastanea, Kosmadei and Votsalakia, were not hurt by the fire.

For those who haven't been to the area of Kako Perato, in my gallery "Along the abyss to the cave in Kako Perato canyon" are some photos I took in 2007 on my way along the footpath leading to this cave.

In addition, I highly recommend to pay a visit to the well presented website of Rainer Kastl, samos-wandern (hiking on Samos) to accompany him on his tour 24 through this area.

The following photos I took in June of the year 2005:

Hiking, starting from the monument on this saddle in the mountains above Marathokampos, in the direction of Kerkis mountain:

In the light of the setting sun on the dirt road leading through the Kako Perato area towards Kosmadei:

Brazen case of copyright infringement and content theft by user n2010k (Nikos Deja Vu) on YouTube

2010-08-01T23:55:00.020+02:00

Ορειχάλκινο περίπτωση παραβίασης δικαιωμάτων πνευματικής ιδιοκτησίας και το περιεχόμενο της κλοπής από n2010k χρήστη (Νίκος Deja Vu) στο YouTube

Two weeks after I uploaded the video with the song "Cloud of Unknowing" by Ad Vanderveen to Youtube on July 16th, I was surprised to find it posted again today on the YouTube platform by greek YouTube user "n2010k" aka "Nikos Deja Vu".

After downloading my video (length 6:49 min), this guy cut off the end of my original video containing the copyright notice, added his own logo (Nikos Deja Vu) over the whole time span of the video and uploaded it again to YouTube under his user name n2010k (length 6:27 min).
A case of pretty bold content theft and copyright infringement.
With regards to copyright laws and violation, this guy seems to have spent most of his time in the "Cloud of Unknowing".

Δύο εβδομάδες μετά έχω φορτώσει το βίντεο με το τραγούδι "Cloud of Unknowing» του Ad Vanderveen στο Youtube στις 16 Ιουλίου, ήμουν έκπληκτος να βρώ αυτό δημοσιεύτηκε πάλι σήμερα στην πλατφόρμα της YouTube από την ελληνική YouTube χρήστη "n2010k".

Μετά τη λήψη βίντεο μου (μήκος 6:49 λεπτά), αυτός ο τύπος διακόπτει το τέλος του αρχικού βίντεο μου που περιέχει το δικαίωμα πνευματικής ιδιοκτησίας, πρόσθεσε το δικό της λογότυπο (Νίκος Deja Vu) σε ολόκληρη την περίοδο της βίντεο και το ανέβασα πάλι στο YouTube υπό n2010k όνομα χρήστη του (μήκος 6:27 λεπτά).
Μια περίπτωση αρκετά τολμηρές κλοπή περιεχομένου και παραβίαση πνευματικών δικαιωμάτων.

The "new" ending as manipulated by "Nikos Deja Vu" aka YouTUbe user n2010k:
Η "νέα" τελειώνει ως χειραγωγείται από τις λέξεις "Νίκος Deja Vu" aka n2010k χρηστών YouTube:

As it seems, this person applied the same "procedure" to a lot of other videos on YouTube too.
The same guy is active too on the vimeo video platform as user: "Nikos Deja Vu"

What excellence in mediocrity!
Bravo, you stupid greek guy in Thessaloniki!

Όπως φαίνεται, το πρόσωπο αυτό εφάρμοσε την ίδια «διαδικασία» σε πολλά άλλα βίντεο στο YouTube και εγώ.
Το ίδιο ο τύπος είναι πολύ ενεργός στο vimeo πλατφόρμα βίντεο ως χρήστης: «Νίκος Deja Vu"

Τι αριστείας στη μετριότητα!
Μπράβο, ηλίθιε τύπος ελληνικά στη Θεσσαλονίκη!

Country roads on Samos

2010-07-29T10:59:00.008+02:00

Driving on the road on Samos island can be a lot of fun, especially in spring, when the countryside is full of blooming flowers and bushes. Here are three examples from end of May 2010:

a.) Going downhill from Ambelos to Ag. Konstantinos on the north coast (Part 1 of 4):

b.) Driving along the road on the north coast of Samos in the Svala/Kampos region (part 1 of 2)

c.) On the road from Balos to Pirgos in the south of Samos (part 4 of 4)

The other parts you can find easily in my videochannel on YouTube

The Avlakia session: Cloud of Unknowing

2010-07-17T12:03:00.002+02:00

The dutch musicians Ad Vanderveen & Kersten de Ligny and greek musician Dimos Kassapidis performing together, playing the song " Cloud of Unknowing".
Recorded "live" 10 meters away from the lovely blue waters of the aegean sea in the small village of Avlakia on the north coast of the island of Samos, Greece, July 2010.

Despite wind jammer used some wind noises due to strong Meltemi winds blowing.

http://www.advanderveen.com
http://www.myspace.com/kerstendeligny
http://www.dimosol1.blogspot.com

Ad Vanderveen and Kersten de Ligny on Samos!

2010-07-12T02:00:00.007+02:00

The two dutch professional musicians Ad Vanderveen and Kersten de Ligny came to Samos for the third time for a holiday. They fell in love with the island and became friends with the greek musician Dimos Kassapidis. Dimos came to know the music of Ad some years ago via dutch visitors on Samos island and is playing some of the songs composed by Ad.

Ad and Kersten have recorded several CDs and you can find videoclips of them on YouTube and Vimeo, e.g. this one:

This year, I met them on Samos for the first time during last week when they were playing at the Hotel "Doryssa Seaside resort" together with Dimos.

Two days ago, on Friday night, they gave a concert with two sets in the restaurant "Archontóspito" on the square in Kontakeika. Unfortunately, a cool Meltemi wind was blowing strong. But nevertheless, all tables were occupied. And the greek audience liked the music.

Besides Ad and Kersten, a young local greek singer was playing, first set alone, then later in the night accompanied by two fellow musicians:

On Saturday we did some recording of a more or less spontaneous jam session in Avlakia on the north coast. Ad, Kersten and Dimos performed several songs, e.g. "This fleeting life" "Cloud of unknowing" and "If I needed you".
To get a first impression, please watch the following videoclip:

I will post some more material in a while.

The mega yacht "Al Mirqab" visiting Pythagorio

2010-06-20T12:12:00.008+02:00

One of the largest private motor yachts in the world, the 133 meter long mega yacht "Al Mirqab" - owned by the emir of Qatar - came to Pythagorio for a short visit in the evening on Monday, June 14th, 2010.

I had heard about this event a day in advance. But when the yacht finally approached Pythagorio early in the evening (coming along all the south coast of Samos from Votsalakia), I just came out of the bathroom after having taken a shower. So, with the towel wrapped around me, I stood on the balcony and filmed the yacht "Al Mirqab" slowly gliding towards Pythagorio.
Then I decided to drive on top of the hill above Pythagorio to take some footage from there.

Most of the photos included in the video by kind permission of Sofoklis Arelis who went down to the harbour to take shots from a closer distance.
Music (song: "come holy fire") by Lothar Kosse, a german guitarist and singer.

Samos Summer Holiday 2010

2010-06-12T12:01:00.003+02:00

We were having a good time in a fish tavern in Ireon. After eating delicious sea food we decided spontaneously to record a video of a song we changed the title a bit from "Summer Holiday" to "Samos Holiday"! ;-)
Besides the footage from Ireon, I included some scenes from other places on the island.

Samos summer holiday from Peter Molz on Vimeo.

Waterfall near the village of Ambelos

2010-06-01T09:20:00.009+02:00

After hearing about it for many years already, this year I finally found my way to the waterfalls near the village of Ambelos high above the north coast of Samos. It is quite an adventureous small footpath leading up and down to the waterfall. The path starts from the last sharp bend of the road before it reaches the platia of the village. There, a sign is indicating the start of the path.
Some parts of the footpath are secured with ropes, making it easier to get along on the rocky ground. And the closer you get to the waterfall, the steeper, cooler and shadier it becomes!

Here are three videoclips showing the waterfall and part of the footpath.

Videoclip 2
Videoclip 3

There was not too much water coming down there on May 30th, 2010.
If you want to see how the waterfall looked like way back in February, watch the nice and entertaining videostory of Nick Tsoulontino on YouTube about Ambelos and this waterfall.

Kalimera! Welcome to Pythagorio!

2010-05-25T12:18:00.004+02:00

Some of my impressions from 8 days in May 2010 in the lovely village of Pythagorio on Samos island in Greece.
Take your time for an approx. 20 minutes long experience.

Special thanks to my friend Jiannis Loulourgas!

Kalimera! Welcome to Pythagorio! from Peter Molz on Vimeo.

Invitation to visit Samos island in 2010!

2010-05-03T16:35:00.013+02:00

The season 2010 is starting, already some charter flights from the Netherlands came and the first charter flights from Germany are coming today to Samos!

Last year I asked my friend, the musician Dimos Kassapidis, to help me to record sort of a promotional videoclip for Samos island. Dimos is a singer who has been playing on Samos during the summer season for many years already and who knows the island and most of its landscapes, beaches and good taverns very well.

We went to almost empty Balos beach on a beautiful sunny and warm day in October and had lots of fun swimming and sunbathing and exploring some hidden coves. Later in the afternoon we did the recording for this clip.

Dimos is sending his invitation message in three languages to the internet world !
I do hope that you will like the videoclip with scenes from Balos beach, accompanied by the sound of the waves and the music of Dimos ...

Visit Dimos on his myspace site

More information and photos about Balos beach you can find here

MyWorld Tuesday

Sunrise timelapse

2010-04-13T20:14:00.001+02:00

A SUnrise i took at the beach of Potokaki during September 2007.
For those of you who never enjoyed the early sunrise on Samos island ;-)

Greece on the ITB 2010 in Berlin

2010-03-20T13:21:00.013+01:00

The ITB in Berlin, this year lasting from March 10th to 14th, is the worlds largest tourism and travel trade show. 11.127 exhibitors from 187 countries all over the world in 25 halls and approx. 180.000 visitors during the 5 days. Admission tickets were 28 Euros per day from Wednesday to Friday (professional visitors) and 14 Euros per day on the public days Saturday and Sunday.

Here are some of my photographic impressions of the stand of Greece in hall 2.2. on the ITB 2010 in Berlin, Germany.

The stand of the prefectures of Lesbos and Chios, offering some nice red wine from Limnos.

Late Sunday afternoon, nobody anymore on the stand of Mykonos. Sunny islands inside the hall, while it is snowing heavily outside in Berlin!

If you might wonder why there are no photos of the stand of the prefecture Samos-Ikaria-Fourni ......, well to my disappointment I have to say that this year they didn't show up, they had no stand. As I learned "...due to technical reasons".

Nevertheless, most of the other greek exhibitors/prefectures from last year were there again with their stands, as can be seen on the map of exhibitors. So, no need to worry!

If you intend to come to Greece this year and you are the typical young and smart tourist (from this year on - according to new marketing strategy - you will be called "guest" instead), don't forget to take your Laptop to the beach then !

No more home computing, beach computing in Greece will become trendy;-)

Interview with Pavlos Geroulanos, Minister of Culture and Tourism of Greece on the ITB 2010 Berlin by Reuters.

More photographic impressions from stands of other countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Spain in other halls of the ITB 2010 in Berlin I will publish within the next weeks in a special set on flickr.

Some videos can be found in my video channel on YouTube:

Rising Waters in Greece

2010-02-23T19:41:00.006+01:00

Not only Samos island is facing problems with the rising water...

Video from 21. February 2010 in Samos town:

Carnival in Mainz

2010-02-15T22:46:00.009+01:00

Maybe people on Samos are interested to see what is going on right now in the city in Germany where I live.

The bad news first: we are having a hard winter this year. It is cold, temperatures were below zero centigrade most of the time since the beginning of January! And we had lots of snow, unbelievable amounts of snow! It is still snowing from time to time, streets in the morning today were white again.

Now the good news: Life is extremely colourful (and loud) these days due to the hightime of carnival season! And the city of Mainz is one of the big centers for carnival (we in Mainz call it "Fassenacht") along the river Rhine.

Today, on Rose-Monday, despite the lousy cold temperatures, about fourhundred thousand people came to see and celebrate the parade in the city! The parade started in a quarter of the city called "Neustadt" at 11:11 and came to an end in another part of the city at about 16:30 in the afternoon. The parade itself had a lenght of approx. 7,5 km lasting almost 3 hours with approx. 10.000 active participants including many music groups (3.500 musicians!) and approx. 150 carnival floats.

With a couple of photos I will try to give you an idea of how colurful these days are now. Maybe the snow-white city and the pale skies acted as a perfect background to enhance all those vivid colours!
And we had lots of music everywhere with many marching bands. Not only today, but in the past days too we had many music groups playing live on a stage at Schiller square in the city, with thousands of colourfully dressed fools dancing to the music!!

Rose-Monday in the city of Mainz is a legal holiday, all shops and businesses are closed! Some even dare to say: "Mainz is a never-ending party throughout the year!"

If you want to see more photos, please visit my website about Mainz called: "Mainz-Images" with several reports on the carnival in Mainz!

Grey Heron - Graureiher

2010-02-10T22:05:00.006+01:00

This Grey Heron is living at a Lake nearby the Hotel Dorissa Bay, Pythagorion.

Arriving at Samos

2010-02-09T16:56:00.002+01:00

Cats of Kontakeika

2009-12-03T18:46:00.004+01:00

Four out of nine cats which I met in Kontakeika in October 2009 while staying with friends on the sunny platia for a couple of hours in the afternoon!
They were strolling around and under the tables of the restaurant we were sitting in, awaiting/expecting some share of our delicious dishes!

Greece from a distance: Michalis Tzouganakis in Mainz/Germany

2009-11-18T00:28:00.009+01:00

(Der Bericht in deutscher Sprache ist hier zu finden!)

On Sunday, November 15th, the phantastic lute player Michalis Tzouganakis from Crete came to my hometown Mainz to give a concert during his "The Spirit of Crete" tour through Germany and the Netherlands. On his tour, he had been to Duesseldorf and Munich before this gig in Mainz.

I never had heard of him before, didn't know his music, but - after some research in the internet - decided to go to his concert. Tickets were 24 Euro in Mainz. Maybe about 200-250 people showed up for the concert, but quite a few seats remained empty. And, not too many greek people around. Nevertheless, it was a phantastic night!

Michalis is an incredibly fast lute player and an extraordinary singer. He was accompanied by four superb fellow musician.
Kostas Sindridis (keyboards), Theodoros Kouelis (bass) und Grigoris Sindridis (drums/percussion). The lyra- and mandoline player Giorgos Skordalos is a class on its own.

I really was surprised by the very pleasant volume in which he delivered his soulful and expressive songs. I have experienced ear-smashing concerts on Samos when local bands were playing.

In the first half of the concert, Michalis sang more slow and emotional songs. After the break, he opened with one of his most famous songs, "Pali, Pali". And the audience went crazy immediately.

Incredibly fast runs on the fingerboard of the lute will end abruptly, then unexpectedly are continued starting in higher
or the highest layers. In between, over and over again, he throws in some syncopated or offbeat attacks on the lute. His music is very rhythm oriented and often abruptly changing.

Michalis sings and handles his instrument with full body use on stage and very often shakes his black lion's mane (yes, he's a lion, born on the 31st of July!) That he has to work hard and persevering on his lute and himself could well be a life issue.

After the concert I came to know four dedicated fans of him, who travel to follow him and try to participate in most of his concerts.

And whom did I meet - mediated by a really big fan from Leverkusen - very late at night in front of the City Hilton hotel in Mainz? Sitting there with two of his tour companions smoking cigarettes? That was a good opportunity to talk with Michalis in a small group.

Michalis Tsouganakis will appear in one more concert in Germany: on Saturday, November 21st, in Berlin, Jazz-Club Quasimodo, 10:00 pm

I asked him if he had played on Samos already, but he denied. He has been to many islands, but not to Samos. Maybe a good idea to invite him in the summer season to Samos, e.g. during the Samos Wine Festival in Samos-town.

Well, how does his music sounds like? On the internet video platforms (e.g. YouTube or Vimeo) videos from his concerts have already been published by fans.

Here are some examples:

From a Greek TV show:

Michalis Tzouganakis live in Greece:

Concert in Frankfurt in the "Fabrik" in May 2009

Concert in Düsseldorf during his tour through Germany in November 2009

Concert in Mainz during his tour through Germany in November 2009

Michalis Tzouganakis live in Germany 2009 on Vimeo.

Stories of Ireon at night (part 2)

2009-11-08T01:20:00.002+01:00

Part 2: the good and delicious food

Over the years I came to know a couple of taverns on Samos I really like to go to and spend some time there with friends. The musician Dimos first took me to this place in Ireon two or three years ago. Since then I like to go there again everytime I'm on Samos: the fish tavern "Captain Miltos"! Fresh grilled fish at its best!
And I especially like the sword fish fillet and the calamari, together with the rosé wine!

Imho it's not a spectacular tavern, rather a place at a dark corner which many tourists won't even take notice of when passing by.

This year I was lucky to be there twice, here are some of my photographic memories of the visits to this tavern:

"Our" swordfish fillets on the grill. "Lecker" as we germans say!

Well this here is our table, my "farewell to Samos table" on that evening on October 12th, filled with many delicious things.
Dimos ordered all of these via cellular phone when we were on our "race" from Balos beach to Ireon:

Swordfish fillet

Squid (Calamari, Kalamares)

Greek Salad (χωριάτικη σαλάτα)

Fried Eggplants (Melitzanes, Aubergines)

Swordfish portion for two people (on that other visit):

Captain Miltos showing what he fished out of the sea, e.g. a big tuna fish, weighing approx. 20 kg.
Not so easy for him to hold this big fish up for a while to allow me to take a good photo! (Maybe that's why he doesn't smile here anymore! ;-))

So it's time to say goodbye: The "Blue(s) Brothers" ;-) Captain Miltos together with Dimos.

I get the blues, bye till next year!

We enter the car and hurry back to Pythagorio. Dimos has only little time left to be in time for starting his music show in a hotel. And I walk slowly - and a bit tipsy I must confess - down the main street of Pythagorio and then up a side street to my studio to take a rest to get rid of some alcohol.
2 hours relaxing time and a warm shower before I will head down to the harbour. At 10:30 p.m. I will meet with Mike in the harbour in another nice place, Manolis' ouzeri called "Karafaki". For some special photographers conversation enhanced by greek "Mythos"! :-)

Stories of Ireon at night (part 1)

2009-11-06T18:18:00.012+01:00

Part 1: the drinkable ingredients

Well, more bottles of samian wine ..... , Dryoussa, Psilés Korfés, Golden Samena, Samaina sec, Fokianos, ....
..... and some hard drinks. Don't forget to try the local Souma and Ouzo! ;-)
And more stories to be told ....

You ask, where is this place? The full story will be revealed in part 2 together with photos of the delicious food there! :-)
You wanna guess? Here is some hint!

Curious about the wines of Samos? If you are interested in these wines, either dry or sweet, red, rosé or white, and where you can get them in your country, please pay a visit to the website of the Union of Vinicultural Cooperatives of Samos (EOSS).
Of course, in many taverns, you will find that local wines are served too as house wines.

Here a short excursion to the history of samian wines can be found .

Samos by night... lol

2009-11-05T16:04:00.008+01:00

04:54 am at my friends bar ... my aproach of creative art Photography... well, at least we were artistic that night...

04:54 am Morgen in der Bar eines Freundes... mein Versuch der kreativen kuenstlerischen Fotografie... na zumindest waren wir kuenstlerisch in der Nacht...

No, No! This one! ;-)

2009-11-03T22:21:00.013+01:00

Old and rusty too: in August 2007, Mike already posted here in our blog a more detailed photo of this old veteran (on the side of the road from Pythagorio towards Samos-town) .

(these two photos taken three years ago end of June 2006)

Well, we could say, this is maybe the most famous Samos car wreck and it is well represented on photo databases worldwide!
E.g.:
David Bratley has published two photos of this car here.
Mike has contributed quite a few here!
Photos documenting the later stages of this vehicle after a new colour had been applied: look here (HDR) and here and here.
A shot in b&w from 2009 is depicted here!
And here is the link to a series of photos Bastiaan Wesseling took of this car!

Do you mean THIS one ?... ;-)

2009-11-03T18:06:00.006+01:00

...it was a Opel Truck on the road from Mitillini to Agiades...

New friends for old cars!

2009-11-02T15:57:00.005+01:00

Holidays on Samos? Looking for a photo of a car wreck? Well, no problem, Samos is rich in old car wrecks!
A wealth of these rotten and forgotten vehicles can be found along the roads, partially hidden in forests or stuck in fields, and in the gardens around the houses. Since many many years!

The photo above is from the year 2006, this was my favorite car wreck. But it had been removed already the next year I came back to this place.

Lately, Rainer Kastl has started a Samos vehicle wreck collection using latest technology. He has taken a lot of photos in October 2009 and positioned the vehicle wrecks he found according to their GPS data on a map of Samos! Now they are so easy to find, nobody can miss them anymore!

He collected 44 wrecks within his two weeks stay on Samos. And, in time, more and more examples will be added as points of interest to this map of car wrecks on Samos. Isn't it astonishing, what you can do with modern technologies? ;-)

Here is the link to the Samos vehicle wreck map.

Me and Mike could contribute quite a few more, but we don't have the respective GPS data.

Btw., already in 2008 Matthias Hänsch from Germany published a gallery on his website called "The old cars of Samos"

More photos of rusty vehicles on Samos can be found here and here

A visit to the area of the big forest fire

2009-10-21T13:27:00.014+02:00

In July 2000, a several day lasting big forest fire eliminated at least 30 percent of the forests on Samos. The area around the village of Pirgos and north of Pirgos up to the top of Karvounis suffered especially. That was a big tragedy for the natural beauty of Samos and a life threatening experience for some owners of land and house properties.

After that fire at lot of initiatives were started to fight future forest fires on Samos. But sadly enough, this large area with beautiful forests in the center and south of Samos was gone. And everyone knew that it would take about 50 - 100 years before there will be real forests again.

During a Jeep tour through the Ambelos mountains in the center of Samos, from Pandroso up to the white chapel Profitis Ilias on top of Karvounis, I was interested to see how things might have changed in the meantime.

In many places, lots of fresh and incredibly green young trees can be seen, most of the newly grown trees (bushes) are approx. 1 to 1,5 meters high.

Here are some photos that show the situation in October 2009.

Some other areas still look devastated, like nothing has changed at all since July/August 2000.

Somewhere on the dirt road leading up to Profitis Ilias: The view to the west towards Kerkis mountain and the bare islands of Fourni

On top of Karvounis mountain (1153 meter high)

View to the northeast from top of Karvounis

The chapel Profitis Ilias on top of Karvounis :

Balos and Pefkos beaches in autumn

2009-10-15T15:08:00.057+02:00

Below the village of Koumeika in the south of the island of Samos, a road leads down to Balos beach. Since last winter, the upper half of this road has been completely renewed, an asphalt road (feels almost like a highway now) leads very comfortably down to lovely Balos bay in a couple of minutes. On the second photo (taken already in 2007) the old road can be seen on the left hand side, the lower part of the new road - which had been finished already then - on the right hand side .

I have visited Balos beach many times during the last years, but only in 2008 I discovered the special light of October in Balos. So I wanted to go back to Balos beach this year again.
Together with the singer/guitarist Dimos, I visited this beach three times between October 7th and 12th, 2009, more or less almost at the end of the season 2009. And we were fortunate to enjoy the almost empty beaches whilst having the most beautiful warm autumn weather on Samos!

"Arriving in Balos was like entering a secret, peaceful world - far from the madding crowds!" somebody wrote in "tripadvisor" about his stay there. That is exactly how it has been there until now.
I am not quite sure what effect this new road will have on this remote place, since it seems that sort of "highway" was build to enable busses full of tourists to go down to Balos beach now .

Well, before this remote and calm paradise might get lost too, let me take you on a journey to a magic place on Samos, here are some of my impressions from October 2009, just a couple of days ago: Fantastic views to Mount Kerkis, a long beach with a mixture of sand and pebbles, cristal clear waters, lots of sunshine almost all day long till the sun sets dramatically behind Mount Kerkis or Ikaria island (depending on season) with glowing evening horizons (view to the west!).

Several houses, a few apartment buildings, 2 hotels and 4 (small) taverns are located on the road leading along the long beach (view to the east!).

And, even further to the east, at the very end of the main bay, some small rocky bays/coves can be explored by a little climbing over rocks.

In October, a perfect place for those who seek the calm and want to stay away from the hectic world. On Sunday, October 11th 2009, there was almost no wind, a perfect day for relaxing, swimming in the warm sea, sunbathing, playing music and recording some music video.

"Caveman" Dimos with his guitar, as depicted above, "live from Balos beach": you can listen to him singing the song: "If I needed you" with the waves rolling on Balos beach in the background. The second song we were singing together, it is the famous "California Dreaming". We recorded these songs in that sort of cave shown in the first photo of this photostory.

The tavern "Esperos" at the eastern end of the beach, where I have been several times over the recent years, already was closed when I came to Balos beach this year. The space, where tables and chairs usually are standing to invite the hungry & thirsty beach visitors, from now on during the winter season is used for apparently other purposes!

If you want to get an idea of how the view is from inside of "Esperos" out on the beach, e.g. in September, please look here !

The tavern "Akrogiali" on the corner, where the road down from Koumeika meets the seafront, was still open, over noon and in the late afternoon after 6:30 pm (both photos are from October 2008).

And the tavern in the middle of the beach "I Paralia" (photo from 2008) was still open too, but they only served drinks: there I got my greek coffee with the glas of water this year again, as you can clearly see in a photo further above!

Stella's cypriot restaurant we didn't visit, so I can't say if this place was still open (photo is from October 2008).

An almost magic atmosphere can be encountered, when the sun sets slowly and floods Balos beach with golden light.

The little chapel next to the taverna "Esperos"

Scenes along the road parallel to the beach

Last minutes of sunlight on the beach

Balos beach already is in the shade, but high up on the slopes of the mountain Spatharei glows in the light of the setting sun.

And, for those who like to eat fresh seafood, it might be a good idea to move on a bit further southeast to the next bay, Pefkos, to pay a visit to the Ouzeri "Bella Vista" on Pefkos beach. For me, there is no other comparable place on Samos to watch the sunset and the glowing horizon behind the huge dark Kerkis mountain while enjoying some excellent seafood and wine in good company.
This place closed down in 2009 on Sunday, October 11th. They told us they will be open again next year from May 1st on. We were lucky enough to be there on this last night with this fantastic evening sky. And, by chance, met there some locals coming from Pythagorio too.

Additional information (October 23rd, 2009):
I would like to direct your attention to websites relating to that area in the south of Samos:

An initiative by Patrick Humphreys called "Amfilissos, River Area of Cultural Inheritance and Ecology" that proposes a plan for a possible development and revitalisation of the area between Neochori, Skoureika, Koumeika and Balos.

A blog called "Mpalos (Balos)" in greek language. Giving lots of information on (greek) music, island life and showing beautiful photos of Samos.

Additional information: (November 1st, 2009)
More than 10 years ago, Franz Nahrada from Austria (Globally Integrated Village Environment (GIVE) Lab, Vienna) proposed a project for the same area: Neohori-Project.

Additional information: (November 2nd, 2009)
Rainer Kastl has done a very good job and has posted more than 20 hiking tours on his website "Samos-Wandern" (in german) using a combination of GPS data and his photos.
His latest addition (tour 22) is a tour in the area between Balos beach and Psili Ammos beach/Peri.

Autumn walk - continued / Herbstspaziergang - Fortsetzung!

2009-10-04T15:17:00.020+02:00

October on Samos!

Lots of areas to be found on the island of Samos to take a walk.
O.k., here are some photos that I took between October 2nd and 4th on Samos, but last year!

First of all: start the day with a good breakfast in the harbour of Pythagorio! I refer to the omelett, not the cat!

Then, a drive to Samos-town and a walk along the harbour with the fresh wind blowing in my face.

Thirdly, an afternoon walk on the hills above Pythagorio to the remainders of the town walls of ancient Samos town.

And a phantastic view down on Pythagorio and across the straights of Samos to the coastline of Turkey.

A group of hikers on a stone path (Kalderimi) leading down from Agios Dimitrios chapel to Samos-Town (October 3rd).

The end of a kalderimi? Heavy road construction work is going on to build a new ring road around Samos-Town on the flanks of the hills !

After visiting the village of Stavrinides high upon the north coast to see myself the Souma (Tsipouro) distillation process:

we drive to the north-west: together with friends walking along the beautiful Seitáni coast to Mikró Seitáni beach, relaxing in the sun and taking a bath in the still warm waters (October 2nd).

Today, October 4th 2009, I sit here in Mainz/Germany in front of the computer, outside dark-grey skies, a little rain. I feel cold because of the lousy temperatures (max. 16 degrees centigrade), central heating not yet working. Wishing I was there in the warmth of the sun. O.K., two more days, this won't be long!

autumn walk

2009-10-02T12:35:00.007+02:00

English:
The autumn offers very nice possibilities to go for a walk around the nature of Samos island. Unfortunately i did not find the time during the last 2 weeks to enjoy such a walk around.
But nevermind, in my photo archive from the last years, there is always something to be found.
Here some photographs from a walk to the "Profitis Ilias" at Tsopela i took on September 17. 2007.

Deutsch:
Der Herbst haelt immer ein paar schoene Tage bereit fuer einen Spaziergag durch die Natur auf unserer Insel Samos. Leider hatte ich in den letzten 2 Wochen keine Zeit um solch ausgiebige Spaziergaenge zu unternehmen.
Aber egal, in meinem Bildarchiv der letzten Jahre laesst sich meistens etwas passendes finden.
Hier ein paar Bilder von einem Spaziergang zum "Profitis Ilias" bei Tsopela, aufgenommen am 17. September 2007.

Crazy...

2009-09-13T19:08:00.005+02:00

Some days ago, a client asked me if i am a "Nikon Freak"...
...any more questions?

Vor ein paar Tagen hat mich ein Kunde gefragt ob ich ein "Nikon Freak" sei...
...noch Fragen?

Sunset

2009-09-13T18:16:00.005+02:00

Sunset at Samos island, seen from Turkey...

Hraia festival of ancient theatre

2009-08-25T11:37:00.010+02:00

Some photographs i took during the Hraia festival, August 18, on the open air stage at the port of Pythagorion. Photos taken with Nikon D700 and ISO 2000
Clik the images to enlarge!

Ein paar Bilder die ich vom Hraia Fest gemacht habe, am 18. August auf der Freilichtbuehne am Hafen von Pythagorion. Aufgeommen mit Nikon D700 und ISO 2000. Bilder anklicken zum Vergroessern!

Michanaki

2009-08-14T20:16:00.005+02:00

English:
It is almost like a tradition, in front of many houses you find this so called "Michanaki". Often, when i like to go for a coffee with my friends, they tell me: "lets go with the Michanaki". It is easier, no parking problems, just dropp it around the corner. Most of these little bikes have a 50ccm engine. Many of them are highly tuned and have nothing common anymore with a 50ccm bike. The german traffic police would have their personal pleasure here at Samos ;-)
These 2 samples i found during a walk at the afternoon at my neighbourhood in Hora.
Ok, i admit it, also my "Michanaki" supposed to be 50ccm, but its running nearly 90 speed ... please don`t tell it to nobody... ;-)

Deutsch:
Es ist schon fast wie eine Tradition, vor vielen Haeusern findet man das sogenannte "Michanaki". Oftmals, wenn ich mit Freunden einen Kaffee trinken gehen will, bekomme ich zu hoeren: "Lass uns mit dem "Michanaki" fahren." Es ist eben einfacher, keine Parkplatzsuche, man stellt es einfach an der Ecke ab. Die meisten dieser kleinen Mopeds haben 50ccm. Viele sind heftig aufgemotzt und haben eigentlich nix mehr gemein mit einem 50ccm Moped. Die deutsche Verkehrspolizei haette hier auf Samos Ihre wahre Freude ;-)
Diese beiden Exemplare habe ich waehred einem Spaziergang am Nachmittag in Hora in meiner Nachbarschaft entdeckt.
Na gut, ich geb`s ja zu, meine Rennsemmel sollte auch eine 50ccm sein und laeuft fast 90 sachen... aber bitte nicht weitersagen... ;-)

Jumping Trees

2009-08-13T16:22:00.007+02:00

For our english readers:
Did you ever had this impression, a tree jumped on the road, out of a sudden, straight in front of your car?? On Samos island this could realy happen to you. As you can see i photographed one of this jumping trees in action. This tree used to stay beside the road. Suddenly it jumped out of the bushes and stays on the road now.... phenomenal... ;-)
Click the images to enlarge.

Fuer unsere deutschen Leser:
Ist euch das auch schon passiert: Ihr koenntet steif und fest schwoeren dieser Baum ist euch eben direkt vors Auto gesprungen, kam direkt aus den Hecken, ohne Vorwarnung...
Sowas kann euch auf Samos tatsaechlich passieren. Wie Ihr auf den Bildern sehen koennt, habe ich so einen Sprungbaum direkt in Aktion erwischt. Frueher stand dieser Baum einmal neben der Strasse, heute steht er mitten drauf... ein wahres Phaenomen... ;-)
Auf die Bilder klicken um sie groesser zu sehen.

Samos is "Special"

2009-08-06T14:27:00.005+02:00

2 days ago, i have been at the port of Pythagorion for a drink. After a long "nihgt" :-) i decided to have a cheese pie before getting a Taxi back home. In the shop around the corner, their had Ham&Cheese pie "Special". I`ve got one of those... it was nice and tasty, with Ham and Cheese inside... but what was it about the special?? So, i asked the shop owner, whats the special on this cheese pie? The owner replied: "The word special is special." I was a little bit confused that moment and than the owner starts laughing, and explained to me: "If i name it special, it sells better."
Well, thats realy special... Hahaha

I`ve done it

2009-08-05T18:03:00.002+02:00

I just did it yesterday... A new Nikon D700 is going to find its way to Samos island. I was waiting for the new announcements of Nikon, the rumors about a D400 made me curious. But after i have seen what they announced, an exciting "S" on the D300s and a D3000, i decided its better to go for a D700. Let see if it is worth the money i am going to spend.

Renault 12 TL

2009-08-03T23:24:00.002+02:00

Its been many years, i haven`t seen this Renault on the streets anymore. My father use to laugh about our neighbours old and rusty 12 Tl... that`s been 25 years ago....Haha.

Renault 12 TL, seen at Ambelos village, Samos island.

"Oriendal Nihgt"

2009-08-03T22:59:00.003+02:00

Seen at Kokkari.... maybe the client was willing to pay for the layout, but not for the corrections??

Up the hill!

2009-07-25T18:10:00.020+02:00

Most of the tourists coming to Samos like the coast, the easy life on the beaches, and the leisure time in the harbours or in the squares of the villages. A few others like to be as far away as possible from the „normal“ tourist streams and want to stay in remote places in the mountains.

But there is something „in-between“. Halfway in-between! Some clever business men have also discovered this „in-between“ sphere and use it as advertising & promotional phrase to sell real estate.

Above the north coast of Samos, there are several well known villages and touristic destinations like Vourliotes, Manolates and Ambelos overlooking the aegean sea with tremendeous views. Stavrinides too, but this is already a bit too high up the hill, and more for individualists.
And then, further to the west ... ?
Wait, before we reach Karlóvasi on the coastal road, isn’t there a road leading up to another village? Well, yes, it’s called Kondakeika!

Kondakeika? "Where on Samos is Kondakeika?" most tourists will ask! Either they have never heard this name, don’t know how to pronounce it, have never been there or most probably will confuse it with Skoureika, Koumaradei, Koumeika or Kondeika. But maybe some of them - by walking, or in their cars/jeeps - already have passed through this village on the way to Petaloudes or to Ydroussa.

Well, what about a stop there, getting out of the car and paying a visit to this place?
With a couple of photos I will try to convince you that it might be really worthwhile to do so! A place, flooded with sun almost all day, in a beautiful hilly landscape surrounded by lots of gardens and vineyards. And in addition, as a teaser: since the end of 2007, there is a very good restaurant on this picturesque small platia of Kondakeika, open all year! With a breathtaking panoramic view to the west to the Kerkis mountain range and down to the coast and the town of Karlóvasi. Those spectacular sunsets and colourful evening skies need to be experienced!

And for those, who want a bit of excitment up in even higher places: a dirt road leads from Kondakeika all the way up to the range of Ambelos mountains and then again down to either Stavrinides or Vourliotes. It will be a fascinating adventure, but it is necessary to have a four-wheel drive and the detailed „Road Editions“ map of Samos. And please don’t smoke or drop empty bottles on the ground, we all want those beautiful forests with lots of green trees up there to remain as they are!

Said the straight man to the late man
Where have you been?
I've been here and I've been there
And I've been in between

I talk to the wind
My words are all carried away
I talk to the wind
The wind does not hear
The wind cannot hear

(I talk to the wind, King Crimson)

Port of Pythagorion

2009-07-14T11:25:00.008+02:00

Two short videos that I took with my Canon IXUS 900 in the middle of July 2007, almost exactly two years ago.

First one shows the port on a sunny day with quite a good breeze. I heard that the bar "Varka" and the restaurant depicted in the video are not anymore existing.

Port of Pythagorion from Peter Molz on Vimeo.

Captain Jiannis: he knows, he is a tourist attraction when he is on his boat Agia Irini. You can see him in the harbour after he comes back with his boat from the daily tourist trips, usually after 5:30 pm. Then the anchored boat is his stage and he "performs" free of charge. And he enjoys very much being in the center of "the show". With the additional two young goats on the boat, who wouldn't stop there to take a look and a picture!

"An evening on Broadway" on June 27th & 28th

2009-06-22T23:02:00.003+02:00

Worth a visit will be the performance "An evening on Broadway" by Christina Tsardoulia`s "Samos School of Dance".

The performance will be held in Sivilla Theater, Hotel Dorissa Bay, Pythagorion on June 27th & 28th, start 20:00

I will be there as well...photographing...

For tickets and information:

Samos School of Dance

tel.: 22730 87368

samosdance@samedia.gr

"The Runaway Bunny"

2009-06-22T22:38:00.006+02:00

The "Samos School of Dance" had a beautiful Performance on June 20&21 at Hotel Dorissa bay.

"The Runaway Bunny" by Maragret Wise Brown is a fairytail about a Bunny, running away from his mother.

More Photographs can be seen and ordered on my new website http://www.pro-samos.com/ .

Currently there are only the photographs from 20.06. online, pictures of 21.06. will follow.

More photos at http://www.pro-samos.com/

A visit to Mikró Seϊtáni beach

2009-06-17T12:32:00.006+02:00

An excursion to the breathtaking beauty of the northwest coast of Samos island in Greece.

Walking under dark pine trees or silvergreen olive trees on that stoney and dusty footpath that leads up and down along the coast to the remote Seϊtáni beaches with their crystal-clear waters.

Spending the afternoon on the beautiful Mikró Seϊtáni Beach, listening to the sound of the wind and the waves. And to the message Dimos wants to offer you!

The Seϊtáni coast with the two main beaches "Megálo Seϊtáni" and "Mikró Seϊtáni" is an example for parts of Samos island, where most of the normal tourists will never go to, because it is not organized and easy to get there.

Don't forget to bring along with you good shoes, enough drinking water and fresh fruits.
No taverns over there! ;-)

A visit to Mikró Seϊtáni beach / Samos, Greece from Peter Molz on Vimeo.

An extended version, approx. 20 minutes long, with more footage from the walk along the footpath, I have posted on Vimeo too! So take your time, maybe on a rainy weekend!
All along the footpath to Mikró Seϊtáni beach

Experience Samos 2009

2009-06-06T16:00:00.006+02:00

This years tourism season started almost 1 month ago. During the past years many tourists from all over Europe came back to Samos again and again every year.
But Samos needs newcomers too, young tourists, who will come alone, together as couples or in groups for the first time to the island of Samos to spend their holidays there. And who will like what they experience on Samos and maybe even fall in love with the island too, like so many others already did in the past.

To give them some good ideas of what to expect, here is my presentation "Samos 2009, a unique experience" that I designed for the young ones :-) It is sort of a high speed random walk all over Samos island.

Samos 2009, a fascinating experience from vimeo-minstrel on Vimeo.

Samos, a green emerald in the blue aegean sea, is located just a few kilometers away from the coast of Asia Minor. It is loaded with natural beauties and archeological sites and - in contrast to many other greek islands - Samos is gifted with large water reservoirs, partly due to forests and high mountains.
In addition, Samos is famous e.g. for its wines and the mathematician/philosopher Pythagoras, who was born on Samos and lived there for many years.

Many different kinds of landscapes can be experienced on this island, e.g. large forests, deep valleys and canyons, herbs with incredible smells, unbelievable fresh and crystal clear water springs, brooks, cascades and even small waterfalls (e.g. in Potami & Imvrasos vallley and near Ampelos village).
High mountains reaching up to 1150 meters (Karvounis, Ambelos) and 1443 meters (Vigla, Kerkis). With many caves and ancient quarries.

Lots of beautiful beaches all around the coasts of this island. Mostly with small pebbles, but some of them, especially in the south, are fine sanded, named psili ammos.

And many small villages, not only along the coast line. The more you get away from the coast, the more you will find the natural and rural life on Samos. Don't forget to visit one of the many panijiria during the summer season, the celebrations of the patron saints of the respective churches or chapels.

Samos has different wines. Not only the famous sweet wine! Besides the red, white and rosé Samos wines and the local Ouzo, try the Souma of Samos (in other places in Greece this spirit - containing about 40 % alcohol - is called Tsipouro!)

Come to beautiful Samos in 2009 for holidays!

All photos were taken by me between 2005 and 2008.

The music that accompanies the presentation is sung and played by various groups/musicians living on Samos and Ikaria. Several of them I know personally.

Music starts with two lively Nisiotika songs. Singers are Evi Morphou and Kyriakos Mavrikis.
Then follows an example for the energetic dance "Ikariotikos", played on violin by Leonidas Tsantiris. This dance "Ikariotikos" is unique and the music is very often heard on the panijiria on Samos too!
This is followed by calm and soulfull Rembetika-Songs, sung by Jiannis Loulourgas and his daugther Maria.
Near the end, there are 2 live recordings I made in taverns in Pythagorio, the musicians Makis & Jiannis Karavasilis accompany Jiannis Loulourgas.

Please note: as far as I know, CD's of these musicians are only available on the islands. Please support the local musicians and their music by visiting their live appearances and buying their CDs when you will visit the three islands Samos, Ikaria and Fourni!

Making a living as a photographer

2009-05-23T12:36:00.005+02:00

Many times i get asked: "Do you make a living with photography on Samos island?" My answer is "yes" and sometimes people are very surprised about my answer. They are surprised because they think: "... how many photos of Pythagorion and Samos town could he sell? " Well, indeed if i where only photographing the beautiful sceneries around the island, my sales potential would be very limited.

To make a living with photography you need to create many sellable photographs, not only beautiful ones. A good sellable photograph is the one that could be used for publications like newspapers, brochures or magazines to visualize different themes.

The above shot is a sample of a sellable photograph. I shot it in 2008 at the airport of Samos island. After taking the photograph, i made it available to editors, Publishers, Graphic designers, PR-companys etc. via different marketing channels.

The photograph got licensed just a few weeks after it has been online and its now used in a brochure of the German State "Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety".

Here are the links to the PDF brochure, my name is mentioned on page 2, the photograph is published on page31

English: www.bmu.de/files/pdfs/allgemein/application/pdf/climate_protection_pays.pdf

German: www.bmu.de/files/pdfs/allgemein/application/pdf/broschuere_klimaschutz_lohnt_sich.pdf

Looking back: Samos 2004

2009-05-22T11:52:00.008+02:00

Personal memories of Samos 2004. A collage of photos taken on Samos in 2004 with my first digital camera, a 4-Megapixel Canon IXUS 430. Looking back, a small but very good digital camera for a start! A solid metal housing, after all these years almost no scratches on the surface! Built for eternity?
And lovely small jpg-files on the hard disc of the computer. Nowadays I'm used to 15 MB files for one RAW photo of my Nikon D700.

But, nowadays, who would buy a 4 Megapixel camera? The 4 megapixel photos are still much more than is needed for HD (1280 x 720 pixel; 0,92 megapixel!) or full HD (1920 x 1080; 2,1 megapixel!).
O.k., if you want to zoom in to some extent, you might need 6 Megapixel photos. On the other hand, the video mode of the IXUS 430 with 320 x 240 pixels and 15 fps was pretty limited then, nowadays this is much better with HD and 25/30 fps becoming a standard rapidly!

This was a unique feeling then, because it was my first time on Samos during the month of May. There I was, middle of May and I was fascinated by the green and blossoming environment and by taking my first really colourful photos with the new digital camera.

I'm preparing a presentation with many of those 2004 photos, but this will take a couple more rainy days in Germany. ;-)

Photographing Hotels

2009-05-17T12:01:00.015+02:00

One of my main business is photographing Hotels. Because my website is still under construction and i get asked every week for some samples which Hotels did i photographed etc... i will now show some samples on our Blog. Rolling out a little bit commercial for myself ;-)

For more Information contact: info@pro-samos.com

Kerveli luxury Villa:

Hotel Naftilos, Pythagorion:

Hotel Santa Katerina, Pythagorion :

2000 km away

2009-05-17T01:25:00.002+02:00

At least on board of the charter flights they always say it is approx. 2000 kilometers distance equaling to 2 hours 50 minutes flight time between Samos in Greece and Frankfurt in Germany. Frankfurt is not far away from the city of Mainz, where I live.

So, what do you think I will do when I don't take photos on Samos? Well, you guess it, I take photos in Mainz!
If you are interested to see some images of a special place located on the banks of the river Rhine, where the river Main flows into the Rhine, please pay a visit to the presentation "Images of Mainz":

Images of Mainz / Mainz-Images from vimeo-minstrel on Vimeo.

Kallithéa

2009-05-17T00:53:00.009+02:00

Kallithéa is a small village in the west of Samos, settled on the slopes of mount Kerkis at an altitude of approx. 300 meters. Most tourists will pass by on the road to Agios Isidoros/Valsamos beach or Drakei, unfortunately without paying a visit to this place. The name Kallithéa means: "beautiful view". And indeed you will have a spectacular view across the aegean sea to the island of Ikaria. And along the road several benches are inviting you to sit down and enjoy the breathtaking sunsets.

If you want, explore the beautiful areas above and below Kallithéa: starting in front of the graveyard, follow the dirt road up the mountain, pass the chapel Ag. Paraskevi under big platane trees. Follow the dirt road till the end, then walk up the steep trail through shady forests to the lovely chapel "Panagia Makrini" inside a cave. I promise, this will be a unique experience during your stay on Samos! Or, starting a little bit outside the village to the south, follow the dirt road that will lead you down to the sea, visit Charalampos chapel and relax on Katsouni beach.

I hav been there already several times. Last year I spent some time there in August and October and took a couple of photos. During the day, the small square and the narrow streets look empty, almost deserted. For sure, only tourists will walk around in the heat of the early afternoon!
And cats are strolling around. Old men are sitting in the shade of huge trees in front of the one and only tavern in the small square.

But during that one hot night in the middle of August, the whole place is more than crowded with hundreds of people who come from all over the world back to Kallithea in summer to celebrate and enjoy the panijiri. The whole square is packed with tables and chairs where people sit, drink and eat, A group of 4-5 musicians plays live music and people start to dance from about midnight as long as they can until the light of the morning dawns.

Wanna take part (visually) in that hot night in the square of Kallithea? At least, for a couple of seconds, you can do that on the internet:

Hot August summer nights on Samos island in Greece: panijiri in Kallithea from vimeo-minstrel on Vimeo.

Interested in the west of Samos island? More photos can be found in my collection "Through the west of Samos between Paleochóri and Drakéi"

Nostalgia...

2009-04-13T11:16:00.007+02:00

I have mentioned it in the comments of my last post....
Nostalgia.... Well the F4 i would not call it Nostalgia as it still is a superb camera.

But, what about this one:

Zeiss Ikon 517/16
Its a Zeiss Ikon Nettar with Novar-Anastigmat 6,3 / 75mm
This camera has been released in 1949. It uses roll film 120 and you get 12 pictures of a negativ size of 6x6cm. The shutter is a vario leaf shutter with speeds of B / 25/ 75/ 200 .
As far as i could test the camera, the shutter is alright and working fine in all shutter speeds.

Actually i like to try this camera, taking photographs on black&white. And there comes my problem now. It seems that nobody on Samos island is able to develop and print this films anymore!!
That said, if i like to try Nostalgia cameras, i first have to get again a Darkroom equipement from E-bay.
Lets go to search...

Upgrading my camera gear (tech. gurus welcome)

2009-03-31T08:07:00.005+02:00

In September 2003 i jumped into the digital waters of photography. Well, i should better say i moved into another world... but anyhow...
That time, my first D-slr was a 6Mp Nikon. It served my quiet a good job, very reliable although i was missing some features on that.
For instance:
- ISO settings below 200
- Mirror Lock-up
- better behave in low-light ( color noise )
- faster series shooting ( only 3 frames a second )
- better and bigger Viewfinder
- Sandwich exposure ( shoot multiple times on the same picture )
- Faster shutter ( 1/4000 only )
- faster flash synch. ( X-synch 1/180 only )
- more battery power / longer duration
- better white balance ( Need to work it out to get colors right )
- better dynamic range
- no cable connection for Studio Flash
- more buttons for functions instead of scrolling through the menu
- Less vibration from the mirror when releasing the shutter

Wow, now i am wondering myself how did i work all those years with that camera...
Although its not all that bad, but it could be better...

My new 10mp camera is better in many things but still not quiet the right camera that i want. Propably, the only solution to solve my problem will be to get a deep gap in my pants and buy the Nikon D3 ( about 4000,- Euro ).

But finally, i found another "solution"
My new camera in details:
- 18MP resolution
- ISO settings starting from 25
- Mirror lock-up
- Better behave in low light / less color noise
- series shooting up to 5,7 frames per second
- one of the best viewfinders i ever look through
- Sandwich exposure as often as you like
- X-synch 1/250
- fast Shutter of 1/8000
- long battery life
- No probs with white balance,filtersets for every light
- very good dynamic range
- cable connection for studio flash
- All important functions with buttons
- Camera vibration from the Mirror and shutter is minimal

And there is my new Working tool:

It`s the old toy-boy Nikon F4s. This analog film camera, manufactured from 1988 until 1996, was one of the most succesfull and reliable pro-slr ever made. It is a real pleasure to work with it. Get it in your hands and you might understand what i mean.

The mentioned 18mp resolution will be reached, if you scan the film with the filmscanner Nikon coolscan 5000 or 9000. If using high-end scanners like Imacon flextight, you will get results far above 18MP.

Samos presentations in high definition (HD, 720p) quality

2009-03-11T12:21:00.008+01:00

Here is the link to my new channel concerning Samos, which I will use for publishing high quality (HQ) and high definition (HD, 720p) media via the internet:

"Experience Samos!"

I have already rendered some of my presentations in HD (720p) quality and published them on this channel.
Please pay a visit!

Since the HD video files now have large sizes, anything between one hundred and several hundreds of megabytes, I recommend to start the download of the stream and wait until at least two thirds of the stream have been downloaded before starting to watch the video. Of course, it all depends on the speed of your internet access and your computer.

"House of the setting Sun"

2009-01-14T14:07:00.011+01:00

Samos-town has a lot of different faces. For example, the beautiful and elegant boulevard Themistokli Sophouli along the harbour, the Platia Pythagoras or the Archeological Museum! Many tourists will visit these sites while they are staying on the island of Samos.

Strange enough, there is one really ugly place along the boulevard, the building of a former hotel, that seems to be - already since many years - a monument for I don't know whom or what! This building resides directly on the boulevard Themistokli Sophouli, on one of the best sites in Samos-Town!
The building looks pretty dilapidated and like it could collapse at any moment!

It is uninhabited and surrounded by a - meanwhile rusted - fence.

There is a house in Samos-town,
best place to view the setting sun,
it's been a sad building for many years,
when are they going to pull it down?

Oh listen, mayor of Samos-town,
don't you see this misery,
it’s such a terrible sight to see
tourists turn away with a frown.

Now the only thing Samos people want
Is to pull this damn thing down
Use the free space to build something new
in the middle of Samos town.

(You can sing the words along with the melody of "house of the rising sun" by "The Animals")

November rain

2008-11-20T19:40:00.005+01:00

November 18. & 19. have been rainy days.
Check out what means a rainy night on Samos island...

Video taken on November 19. 1:06am

Rain on Samos Island, Greece

Drive-In café on Platia Pythagoras

2008-11-16T12:33:00.007+01:00

Seen in October 2008: looks like a market in Samos-Town for the sale of motorcycles and motorscooters. But it isn't!
After most of the tourists have gone, there is room enough for all those fancy vehicles on the Platia Pythagoras again. Quite a challenge, the "real art" is to place your vehicle in a such way that nobody can overlook it!

To me it seems that Samians don't want to walk too much, they need instant access to the cafés on Platia Pythagoras and their scene. Not more than a couple of meters walk and then they want to sit down, take their mobile phones and "communicate". The café Iraion is one of the noisiest places I know on the island! ;-)

Photographers and their habbits

2008-11-12T18:00:00.004+01:00

I think every photographer, like all humans, has his habbits....
And some things will never change :)

First picture taken August 2005

Second picture taken October 2008

Well, if i where nasty i could also say: he is not a pro if it takes him that long to get the shot right hahaha... ;)

Sunny outlook on life

2008-09-25T11:43:00.004+02:00

For several days we had rain, dark clouds, grey skies, relatively low temperatures. But yesterday the weather was nice and the air clear with good visibility. On my way to Samos-town I stopped and took this photo!
These people from Holland had just arrived on Samos the day before and they sat down on this bench to enjoy the breathtaking view over the gulf of Samos with Samos-town and its harbour in a distance and the old houses of Ano Vathi on the slopes of the hill in the front.

Alyki Wetlands

2008-09-01T23:15:00.015+02:00

First snow on Samos for this year after the end of August?
No, not really, though it looks like it at first sight. It's salt!

Driving on the road along Mykali beach to Psili Ammos beach in the south-east of the island, you will pass by a shallow lake with salty water, sort of a lagoon, the Alyki wetlands. Well known for flamingos who stay there for a while in winter/spring.

But now the wetlands are completely dried out, a layer of salt covers the ground and the salt crystals shimmer in the sun.
Here are some impressions of how it looked like in the late afternoon of September 1st.

Fallen Beauties

2008-08-29T18:44:00.007+02:00

Early this morning I happened to walk around in the port of Pythagorio. Taking photos of course and watching the early morning sky and the sunrise over the coast of Asia minor. Sun rise today was approx. 7 o'clock. Some clouds around the mountains of Cape Mykale.

When walking over to the side of the port where the Pythagoras statue is located, I came across this fallen beauty . The first one of the new lamp poles in the port of Pythagorio to be damaged?

Here you get an idea of how it should look.

Dirty main street or mainly dirty looking street?

2008-08-22T11:56:00.011+02:00

The special alchemy of white stone and dark rubber tyres of vehicles lead to a surprisingly fast change in the looks of the newly paved main street in Pythagorio.

First, almost eye-blinding white, now, 2,5 month after it has been finished, it looks awfully dirty, not only the main street but the pedestrian side walks too.
I mean the main road is as dirty as in all the years before, nothing really changed with regards to the blackening effect the tyres of many vehicles leave behind on the main street. But something has been significantly improved: before it was just dark asphalt like in any other villages too, but now it really looks dirty. Everywhere!

Some people in Pythagorio are still wondering why there was a need to remove most of the trees and renew the main road (again after three years) and spend so much money to achieve such an effect.
But tourists will get used to stumbling down the new uneven main street and will enjoy that "dirty walking" feeling in Pythagorio.

The effect is best seen in the evening, when the sun is low and floods the main street with its light. This is the time when many tourists come to town and walk down the main street to reach the harbour.

Wine festival 2008 in Samos-town

2008-08-20T12:47:00.028+02:00

Every year in July and/or August, the Samos wine festival takes place in several villages of the Vathy district. The final festivities are held in Samos-town, a five days event on a site near the harbour with lots of things to eat, drink and listen to.

If you happen to be one of those lucky tourists who like to come to Samos and already uses the intenet, don't try to find information on this years event in advance in the internet! Google doesn't help and on the site of Vathy (http://www.vathi.gr/european_version/index_eng.htm) you will only find last years programme!!!
If you are lucky enough to be already on the island and discover one of the advertisings or even find a printed programme, you will be really positively surprised, because they set up a lot of events and all events are described in greek and english!

This year the Samos wine festival in Samos-town lasted from Saturday, August 16th to Wednesday, August 20th. Different dance groups and bands/musicians were dancig/playing there on a big stage.
I visited the festival on two consecutive days and here are some of my photos and impressions from Monday, August 18th and Tuesday, August 19th.

Monday, August 18th:
first there was a program for children with a clown, the children were fascinated by what was going on on the stage, mouth and eyes wide open ...

then there were traditonal dances performed by "The Kavalla Lykeio Ellinidon Group"

and then the greek "C-Real" rock band with powerful lead singer Irini Douka took over the stage. (website: www.c-real.gr/)
They started with many greek songs but later changed to songs sung in english. Nice to hear they had songs like "Zombie" of the Cranberries in their programme too. After the concert I had the pleasure to talk to Irini Douka for a couple of minutes.

Some critical remarks:
unfortunately, the PA equipment supplied for the Samos Wine festival seems to be designed for a series of hard rock concerts and not taking into account that there are tradtional folk dancers appearing too. So the music for the dancing group sounded absolutely terrible on Monday night. Absolutely imbalanced bass and highs, extremely loud and shattering bass. What a pity for the beautifully dressed dancers.
Already in the last two years I wondered why they set up such huge amounts of equipment there only to achive such poor sound in most instances! The main focus seems to be on pushing up the volume to earsplitting levels. Because the sound engineers do know that, they build up their sound controlling platform at least 50 meters away from the main stage with the loudspeakers. ;-)

I went to the people who control the mixing consoles and amplifiers worth thousands of euros and asked them to change something about it, but they just said: "we cannot do anything, it's the CD they gave us". Listen to the following band, it will be a better sound!
Very professional attitude indeed.
Or pure ignorance for the heritage of Greece?

I'm pretty sure it took hours to set up the right sound for the following rock band "C-Real" using the mighty mixing consoles! And they don't have 5 minutes time left to adjust the sound for the dancing group in advance? Come on ....

My suggestion: why not try a different attitude next year? And focus on the sound quality of acoustic music in the first place?

A very good example for superb sound quality achieving an incredibly beautiful atmosphere was given on the occaison of the concert of "Café de l'art" (Notis Mavroudis, Panagiotis Margaris together with Anastasia Moutsatsou) at the Hera temple on the night of the full moon on August, 16th!

There is something else I noticed. One third of the greeks at the concert on Monday night didn't bother anyway for the sound of the music. Their life style seems to be: mobile phone pressed to one ear, the other ear they shelter with their hand to not hear the music and they make it an olympic discipline to communicate most of the time via mobile phones directly in front of the huge loudspeakers at the stage.

Tuesday, August 19th:
(to be added soon!)

Chapel discovery tour on Samos

2008-08-01T09:39:00.007+02:00

Everywhere on the island of Samos you will find beautiful chapels. So many, it is not easily possible to count them all or even visit them all. And still nowadays, more chapels are built! When located on top of a hill their name often is: Profitis Elias.

There is the story of this photographer who came to the island and decided, that he wanted to take a photo of every chapel and church on the island of Samos. Pretty soon he found out that this would be a never ending job!

The following photos will give you an idea with a small selection of chapels found all over Samos. I will not let you know by first glance where I found them. I feel it is better when you yourself discover your own favorite chapels by walking or driving around on the beautiful green island in the east eagean sea. So, when visiting the island of Samos, start your own chapel discovery tour! And be prepared to encounter an enormous variety of stiles and sizes!

Images of Samos

2008-05-29T15:15:00.018+02:00

Professionel photographers take photos and sell them to interested customers worldwide! Either directly, or, mainly via photo databases in the internet. To private customers mainly as high quality printouts on different media and in different sizes.
You will not be surprised that this is excactly what we do, e.g with our best photos of the beautiful island of Samos in Greece.
Here is a little advertising:

Music is from the new CD (2008) "Rebetika Tragouthia" of bouzouki player and singer Yannis Loulourgas from Pythagorion!

Samos for Youngsters: Potami valley and waterfalls

2008-05-12T00:56:00.018+02:00

Something to be found on the island of Samos for those who are young and like adventure?
Of course, take a ride with a moutain bike up to Ambelos mountains! Or, if you like wind and water, go for surfing near Kokkari or on Kedros beach on the north coast. Or explore the inner beauty of Samos on dusty roads with a jeep. Or visit the caves with special guided tours.

One other thing, where you can take your parents along and leave them behind after a while for sure: the Potami valley and Potami waterfalls west of Karlóvasi!

First you will pass by an ancient byzantine chapel and then you walk along the brook in a shady forest inside the valley, cross several times the water on small bridges or pieces of wood. Then you will end up in front of a small basin. And from there on you need to wade and swim in the cool water through a gorge to see the first Potami waterfall. No other way to see it!
Send your parents up the wooden stairs leading to a plateau with a taverna!

It takes some courage to follow the brook upstream or downstream and climp up or down the three waterfalls. At two waterfalls, the second and third, you will find a rope that makes this a lot easier. And of course, after the second waterfall, it takes time to walk in the bed of the Potami brook and cross quite a few cascades until you will arrive at the third waterfall!

As far as I remember, there are only two places, where you need to swim for a couple of meters, because the water is deep. Most of the time you just wade in the water. Take care of the many rocks! Maybe it is a good idea to bring some water resistant sandals along for better walking in the bed of the brook.

Here are some photos of the Potami valley and the waterfalls. The canyons look different, depending on the time of day you go there. Best time is around noon, when the sun shines down straight and you get the best light there.
Of course, depth of brook, water temperature and amount of water coming down the waterfalls will vary with the seasons!
If the water in the brook is turbid already down in the valley before the first waterfall, you know that for sure you can expect many many tourist climbing the cascades of the Potami brook!
(click on the photos to see larger size image!)

Wild Wild Samos

2008-05-06T17:31:00.004+02:00

Its like the horse, if it is getting to old, we need to shoot it down....

Car Shot to Death - Watch today’s top amazing videos here

Samos 2008 presentation

2008-04-18T22:19:00.016+02:00

More than 100 beautiful fotos - taken during several stays on the island in the years 2004 to 2007 - were used for this presentation showing the beauty and charms of the island of Samos in Greece.

At the end of the presentation, I have included several photos giving you an impression of what is going on at the local festivals, e.g. the big wine festival in Samos-town and some of the smaller festivals called "panajiri", e.g. in the villages of Kedros, Ydroussa, Kondeika and up in the mountains in the cave of Panagia Makrini near Kallithea.

Each village has its church and many chapels, all of them have a consecration day according to the name of the respective saint accompanied by a parish fair, a "panajiri"! People do not only drink and dance a lot, but are very religious and visit the church at least two times during the two days of panajiri. And of course, the priests take part in the celebrations on the platia of the village!

Music in this presentation is played "live" by a good friend of mine, the bouzouki player and singer Yannis Loulourgas from Pithagorio. The music you hear comes from a performance of him together with some of his friends and music collegues from the island at the ancient theatre of Pithagorio, I think this was 4 years ago. Yannis specializes on rembetiko style greek music.

Pythagorio`s Facelifting Part3

2008-04-13T11:39:00.012+02:00

Who of you readers remembering the good old Asterix&Obelix ?
Obelix always used to say "They are crazy this romans".

But, wasn`t there one book Obelix said .....they are crazy this Greeks ???

............TO BE CONTINUED...................

Photographs copyrighted by Michael Anhaeuser

25 march, independence day

2008-03-30T19:19:00.006+02:00

Photos of the parade at Pythagorion

Photos copyright by Michael Anhaeuser

Kako Perato Canyon & Cave

2008-03-15T01:29:00.010+01:00

In the mountains of Samos there are a lot of caves. Already Pythagoras is said to have taken advantage of one cave to seek for shelter when he had some arguments with the tyrann Polykratis quite a long time ago.

Of these many caves, one - with a small chapel inside - is located in the Kako Perato canyon (bad passage canyon) west of Karlovasi and Kosmadei. This canyon starts near a small monastery called "Panaghias Kakopérato" and leads down to the remote Megálo Seitáni beach.

The footpath leading to this cave is really adventureous. It starts somewhere below this small monastery that reigns over the beginning of the canyon. Following that footpath you proceed into the canyon on the southern side. But instead of going down, first you need to climb up a hill on this footpath.

Then, like riding on a rollercoaster, you pass a blue door arch with a cross on top of it at the highest point, from there you go down steeply and then for a couple of hundred meters along the western flank of Kako Perato canyon.

Those who suffer from vertigo will have a hard time on this part of the path. But the path is safe, there are blue railings that protect you from falling down into the frightening abyss of the canyon on the right hand side of the path.
Once you arrive at the entrance of the cave, it is time to relax. Turn around and enjoy the beautiful view over the canyon.

A spectacular view is awaiting you - through an opening in the wall - from within the cave across the canyon to this triangular shaped rock on the other side. You could even imagine the face of a person petriefied in this rock (or is that a photoshop artefact?).

Samian honey bee

2008-03-09T16:47:00.005+01:00

Original samian honey bee,
it is a new species i recognise it today when i`ve been for a walk.

Photos copyright by Michael Anhaeuser