On The Hunt for Great Sites On Samos

First I would like to say this...

I have met so many great people here in Samos, Greeks and ex-pats,

or as my girlfriend in high school, who was 100% Greek, said:

"There are two kinds of people in this world...Greeks and those who wish they were."


Colin Penfold, who is remarkably not Greek...I'll bet you can guess his nationality,

took me in his 4 wheel drive Suzuki 'Jimmy Jeep'

on an excursion around this wonderful island...

searching out locations of antiquities that will serve us in the new novel...


Colin is a brilliant artist that begins with his own B & W photos (great themselves)

then does some dark room magic and Voila! Pure Art...

I wish I had some to share with you...

maybe soon...

Colin and I started out at 'the salt flats' on the southern part of the island...

We are not sure when the inhabitants began to use their ingenuity to flood 

the already existing marsh and then let the water evaporate, 

leaving the precious commodity to be collected and stored in a interestingly 

buttressed stone building...

Here's a picture of what we saw as we arrived at the salt flats...

BTW...there are flamingos in the 

marsh...they migrate in and out of Samos here each year!

(You might have to look carefully...but they are there!)

The building in which they stored the salt was waayy substantial... interesting stairway/ramp leading up to the second floor...

The Buttresses you see here apparently kept the building from breaking apart from the inside pressure created when the salt became damp and expanded...

It seemed that there must have been some transport that ventured up that ramp and somehow unloaded  the salt through these openings...

At the top of that formidable ramp/stairway there were these...

Colin surmised that there must have been some sort of small carts, perhaps on rails, that would unload the salt in each room...and he was right! We found, in the rubble of one of the storage rooms, these small cars that traveled on tracks and if you look carefully, you can see that they are triangular in shape, allowing them to dump the salt they carried into the appropriate room...

As we made our way to the south end of the building, there was a marked difference in the stairway from the entrance to the north...then...

Blogman in a picture...whooda thunkit?

Flamingos in the marsh from the east end

Having solved the mystery of the salt flats we headed for the ancient wall surrounding the city...

On the way, we couldn't help but notice that olive trees are ubiquitous on Samos...they are everywhere we turn...and many of them naturally occurring...

This olive tree is laden with fruit...these were here during the time of my stories...

That would be 600BC

On our way to the ancient wall, we ran across another common sight here in Samos, a sight that also was common in the time of my stories...

A Small herd of goats...the goatherd just to the right of center in the picture...

Many sights leading up to the majesty of the wall...

The beauty of this island seems to be revealing itself daily...This wall as seen from this vantage point is somewhat obscured by the vastness of Mount Ampelos and the valley below, but as you can see in the following pictures, it was a formidable feat...

You can see from this view that looks into the wall itself, that the outside stones were finely hewn and placed in a pattern, while the middle of the wall was filled with rubble...

The building of this wall was concurrent with the construction of the Eupalinos Tunnel, the first aqueduct...

It was fed by a stream that stil supplies water...although the source looks quite different today...there was a large hidden tank that is now covered by a church...

The hidden conduit that fed the north end of the tunnel followed the contour of the valley...

Here you see an opening at the beginning of the conduit that is visible today...

The conduit went underground and followed the contour of the valley until it met the northern entrance to the tunnel

The northern end, the beginning of a 1036 meter tunnel that was dug through a mountain, started at the south and the north end at the same time and eventually, (after 10 years of digging with hand tools) meeting in the middle...so the Chunnel had a predecessor! 

Some pictures of the interior of the tunnel...

This, the northern end, began with the water channel at 3 meters...at the southern end, it is a remarkable 9 meters!

All the while...the working level of the tunnel remained level...

The building of this tunnel, this first aqueduct, plays a major role in my new novel...

Thank you Colin for a day I shall never forget...we are good scouting partners...

we share keen interest in the story behind the treasures we saw...

And thank you for introducing me to the tavern on the village square in Mitilini...:)

Thomas

And now...

The Fable of the Week...

Many years ago, when the animals all spoke the same language, there was a lion, 

the king of animals, sleeping soundly in the forest. 

Some mice were running nearby and one little mouse, unaware that he was 

running over the head of the king, brushed up against the lion’s whiskers, abruptly waking him. 

The lion angrily slammed his paw down upon the poor unsuspecting mouse.

The mouse wiggled to peek out from under the lion’s massive paw and exclaimed, 

‘You are the king of all animals. I am but a mouse. If you kill me, it will mean nothing 

and I am a completely insufficient snack for you. However, if, in your kindness, 

you let me go, I might be able to help you someday.’

The lion scoffed, ‘How could a smidge like you ever help me, the greatest king of all?’

‘You’ll never know unless you let me go,’ said the mouse.

  

‘You are right,’ declared the lion, in kingly fashion. ‘You are not even a morsel, 

so be gone with you, before I change my mind and use you for a toothpick.’

The little mouse ran into the woods crying back to the lion, 

‘You will never regret this.’ 

Soon after that, the mouse heard the roar of the lion, but it was not the roar of power. 

It was the roar of fear. The little mouse ran to the source of the roar only to find the lion, 

completely ensnared in a hunter’s net. Proudly, he walked up to the lion and asked, 

‘Remember me?’

The lion responded with a smile, ‘Yes,’ and the little mouse gnawed at the net 

until he set his friend, the lion, free. The lion was forever grateful. 

Yannis Loulourgas' Bouzoukis Workshop

The Heraion

When I first arrived at the Heraion in Samos, I approached the marble podium above and immediately this beautiful cat came running out from the trees and perched herself right on the engraving that I wanted to capture in a picture. She was purring loud enough to be heard in Pythagoria, about 11 kilometers away! I named her Hera...and I swear she purred even louder when I called her that! She was a delightful greeter...

 It is said that the goddess Hera was born here on the banks of the Imbrasos river beneath a Lygos tree...

 

 She was betrothed to Zeus and the rest...well, that was just the beginning, wasn't it?

 

 I spent the better part of the day last Saturday at this sacred site.

 

 

                           The enormity of this ancient temple was difficult to imagine until I saw this...

 

               Look to the right of the rightmost column and you will see the height relation to man...!

 

 
This is an overhead rendering of the columns in the temple. There were 155 of them, each 20 meters tall...that's over 60 ft.!...Herodotus wrote: "The most eminent of all the temples we have beheld"

This column, at half it's original height, is the last remaining column out of the one hundred and fifty that stood in support of this, the greatest of all temples honoring Hera...

 

 

 The site itself is over 20 acres and with each step I took, there was yet another remnant of Hera's Temple...

 

 

This site plays an important role in my new book...

For more information, click here

And now for ÆSOP's Fable of the Week...

The Fox and the Grapes


  One hot summer's day a Fox was strolling through an orchard
 

till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which
 

had been trained over a lofty branch.  "Just the thing to quench
 

my thirst," quoth he.  Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and
 

a jump, and just missed the bunch.  Turning round again with a
 

One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success.  Again
 

and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to
 

give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: 

"I am sure they are sour."

 

 

 

 

TUMI is Home!

OK...I can finally admit it to all of you...

I have been like ÆSOP without DIANA...I thought of her when I fell asleep...she was there at the

moment I awoke...I missed her each waking hour...and now...She's home!

My TUMI!...She is so hot...she was pretty tagged out and exhausted...she said that guys had their hands

all over her...Look at this dude...he's hitting on her right in front of me!

Oh, Baby...I'm so glad you're home, 

I asked her if she wanted to go straight to our apt. so I could undo her zipper...she looked at me kind of

funny then, what she said next I didn't expect...she asked..."Did you go to the Herarion without me?"

OMG!...You know when you have to tell a white lie...just to protect the one you love...

I had to say it..."Why of course not, Tumi...it would mean nothing without you...Let's go right now...

So I opened her door and lifted her into the passenger seat...rolled down the window...I could see that

needed some fresh Samos air and we sped up the hwy to the Heraion about 5 km north of the airport...

She didn't say much on the way, but I knew she was happy to see me by the way her tags wafted around 

her handle in the breeze...when we arrived at the Heraion, it was closed! 

"Oh NO" She cried, "I told everybody in the bag room that we were coming here first thing!" 

Well, I couldn't let her down, so I placed her (she was way too tired to roll out of the car herself) in front

of the locked gate and took her picture...

She felt a little better after that, so I told her how much I missed her and how my life was next to nothing

without her..."I didn't brush my teeth, didn't change my clothes," I went on...I could feel her

appreciation, knowing that without her, I felt naked...unclean...(well I didn't tell her that...)

On the way back from the Heraion, we saw a tree in the middle of the street...that's right... a tree

in the middle of the street, and she said..."How odd...I think I want to have my picture taken in front of

that tree..." Of course, I obliged...she asked me to put her handle down though...I love the way Tumi

is so outgoing one minute and demure the next...

When we got back in the car, she sighed, "I need a glass of wine," so I headed straight for the Port of

Samos and rolled her into the Pythagoras Internet Cafe...and ordered her a Cabernet...

Tumi took a long drink and finally began to relax...she had about three glasses of Cabernet then she said

the words I've been longing to hear...

"Baby, let's go back to the room...I want you to undo my zipper, real slow...tease me...I got something in 

here that you can't live without"...OMG...I love when she talks like that...

But then, I wondered, which of her many gifts I wanted to savor first...

I know...the baby oil...or maybe the shaver...

Oh, Tumi...I don't ever want to be without you ever agin...EVER...

I feel complete...

:)

Note: ÆSOP refused to have one of his fables be a part of this...:(

NYC to Athens - Interesting..and More So...

It started out just fine...

The picture NYC as seen from Delta 132 Leaving
JFK at about 5:00pm Eastern Time embarking upon a 10 hour  flight to Athens...so far so good...

The chicken dinner was tasty...complimentary wine...not bad...took 2 Tylenol PM and slept soundly...

Arrived in Athens, just a little late, at 9:45 am...seven hours time difference between NYC and Athens...

Immigration takes more time than is comfortable because I have a scheduled flight to Samos...at 11:00am on Aegean Airlines...

Get through immigration by about

10:15...tight...however, I remember

the gentleman that curb handled my

luggage at JFK was thoughtful enough

to check it through all the way to Samos...

I'm OK...tight...but OK...between

immigration and the 'Transfer Flights'

sign there is a flight info desk,

so I stop for directions to Aegean Airlines...the nice lady tells me that I must first retrieve my luggage 

from carrousel  4, submit to customs then re-check my bag as I check in at Aegean Airlines...

Time is tight...so I head for Carrousel 4 and wait...and wait...everyone else retrieves their bags and I am 

waiting...it is now 10:40 and my flight leaves at 11:00 from somewhere in the Athens Airport still 

unknown to me...

I head for the 'Swissport' desk which is handling lost luggage...hand

her my luggage ticket whereupon the nice lady explained that since my

luggage was checked through to Samos, it would have been

separated out, for their is no customs in Samos...it would arrive

shortly she assured me and pointed at Carrousel 4...as if she were a teacher and my desk was in that direction...

At 11:05 Carrousel 4 stops...and my bag is not on it...whereupon I

return to the nice lady at Swissport, who then looks into the system

and informs me that my bag has been left behind at JFK...









And now my mind is racing..."What could have happened to my bag at JFK?"...then I suddenly conjure up dreadful images...

Shaking me out of my horrific dream sequence, the nice lady at Swissport assured me it would come in tomorrow...

"OK," I said..."I can live without my bag until tomorrow; however, my Aegean flight has already departed...do you have a suggestion?"

The nice lady at Swissport sent me to Olympic Airways who had a flight leaving at 3:30 pm...the only other flight to Samos that day...

Are you with me?...I'm not sure I am as I am 7 hours lagged and even with my 'No Jet Lag' homeopathic

pills in me, I'm pushing the envelope of cogent thought at this point...

Dutifully I report to the Olympic desk and the nice lady there tells me that I must go to the Aegean desk

to re-issue my ticket...and yes, there is availability on the flight...she points at a desk that looks to be

about three miles away...and yes, I feel as though another teacher has asked me to sit down and be quiet...

I walked the three miles (OK it felt like that) to the Aegean desk and

the nice lady there (are all airline desk people former elementary

school teachers?) tells me that since my original itinerary was booked

by Delta, I would have to walk to the other end of the airport (I think it

was six miles) to have them re-book me onto Olympic's 3:30 flight to Samos...

Are you following this?

So the nice gentleman (there were men teachers in my elementary school too...this one reminded me of 

Mr. Green in 6th grade) looks at my ticket and asks me why I missed the Aegean flight at 11:00 am...and 

I explained as best I could, gasping for air after my six mile walk to the Delta desk, what had occurred...I 

then asked him if he would please book me on the Olympic flight and he balked, because I had missed 

the Aegean flight...I asked him to call the lostage baggage at Swisstageportage and the nice teacher there 

told him that IF my bag would have made it...ya da ya da...but of course that was impossible because my 

bag was still at JFKage, whereupon Mr. Green, the nicage manage at the Deltage deskage issued me a 

ticket for Olympic Airlines 3:30 pm flight and handed it to me as if it were a hall pass and the note that I 

had brought him was a rank forgery...after thanking himage, I caught a glimpse of a McDonalds sign and 

high tailed it for a Big Mac...I felt like my last meal had been on October 11th...

My tummy now feeling Mac'd...I stopped by the LG

battery charging station to pump some gas into my iPod

and iPad and it worked for a little while and then went on

strike...at least my instruments were 1/2 charged...





Meanwhile...it is now 12:30 and Alecos is waiting at the Samos airport for me...I must call him...uh oh,

in the upper left hand corner of my iPhone it says...'No Service'...odd...I've traveled abroad many times

and my iPhone worked well...having arranges with AT&T that whole international travel routine, for

which I now had a masters degree...so Alecos is waiting at the Samos airport for a Yankee he has never met...

So I looked around and there was a lovely youngish Greek woman

dressed in cool torn jeans with rhinestones where the raggedy holes

would normally be and wearing very cool shoes that looked as though

she had taken them out of my agent Kirsten's closet...(Kirsten wears the

coolest shoes ever)...I asked if she spoke english and she nodded a

suspicious yes and I began to explain my plight...about half way through

the rhetoric you just skimmed through (I hope for your sake) she

waved me off and said, "Give me the number you want to reach and I'll

call it for you..." Whew! she did and Alecos answered and that was that...I thanked her and offered to

buy her a Big Mac, she demurred explaining that her flight was leaving...I gave her my card...and

thanked her muchagely...


At last, I arrived in Samos...Alecos is as cool as he can

be...a guide here in Samos as well as a real estate agent...

he drove me to my apartment which is perfect for my

research here...it overlooks the Marina where we

moored the Holo Kai the last time we were here...small world...

More soon...

It occurs to me that ÆSOP encountered none of this in his time...

And now...

The Fable of the Moment...

ο αγόρι που φώναξε Wolf, γνωστό και ως The Shepherd Boy και ο Λύκος, είναι ένας μύθοςπου δόθηκε στη Αίσωπος (210 στο σύστημα αρίθμησης του Perry. ^[1] ) Ο πρωταγωνιστήςτου μύθου είναι βαριέται βοσκός αγόρι που ο ίδιος διασκεδάζει με την εξαπάτηση γύρω χωρικούς να πιστέψουν ένας λύκος επιτίθεται κοπάδι του προβάτων. Όταν ήρθαν να τον σώσουν, διαπίστωσαν ότι οι συναγερμοί ήταν ψευδείς και ότι είχε χάσει το χρόνο τους.Όταν το αγόρι ήταν στην πραγματικότητα αντιμέτωπος με έναν λύκο, οι χωρικοί δεν πίστευαν του κραυγές για βοήθεια και ο λύκος έφαγε το ποίμνιο (και σε κάποιες εκδόσεις το αγόρι). Η ηθική αναφέρεται στο τέλος του μύθου, όπως:

We are in Greece you know...

:)

More Soon...

Yeah, so today is soon...(November 12, 2010)

What a tease...and yet, Zeus, who controls the weather here...(and who knows where else) had his fun

today...and the journey was so worth it...I am about to go to sleep with a gaggle of wonderful memories 

of this day...my first complete day in Samos...

Here's how it started...

Even thought I took drugs...(Tylenol PM) and went to bed at 8:30 pm Samos time...I still awoke at 2:30 

am...full of joy looking out at the Aegean Sea...the clouds began to appear...I walked into Pythagoria, the 

port town here (historically, the 'big city') had an english breakfast at one of the strand restaurants and 

walked the main street...my instinct was to rent a car...now, I must say that I realize that my best quality 

is following my instincts...that is what led me here...but today I get a gold star...or, I should say, my 

instincts get that star...as I walked the main drag...and BTW...the main street is a marble street...that's 

right, MARBLE...I shall take a pic for you tomorrow...I came across a National Car Rental...the door 

was open, but no lights were on...there was a gentleman at the desk...so I enquired..."Do you speak 

English? His response..."I hope so, I'm from Oklahoma..." His name is Richard Wight...great 

guy...rented me a car and drove me to the airport to pick it up...we also checked on the status of my

luggage and found no information and before I could react...Richard said, "Don't worry...it always

arrives..." and he was right...someone called me from one of the airlines a little later...either Delta, 

Aegean or Olympic to say that my bag was on the afternoon flight to Samos from Athens and I could 

pick it up after 4:30pm...after obtaining a local phone here and driving to visit one of the great historical 

sights here...the Herarion, I went to the airport to fetch my bag...only there was a catch...it has been

raining here, the storm was of such magnitude at altitude that the plane carrying my bag turned around 

and headed back to Athens...you know...I'd just like to brush my teeth with something other that the

scrubber I am using on my body...besides, as much as I like 'No Tears' shampoo...it doesn't taste that 

great...about this time I am grateful that I have little or no body odor that seeps into my clothes as I am

going on my 4th day wearing them...I'm hoping for better weather tomorrow...

OK so much for Zeus' sense of humor...here's the best part...

Today was my first full day in Samos...I met seven wonderful people today...al ex-pats...New Zeeland

Sweden...England...Denmark and the U.S. and they all said the same thing about Samos...

They all started with a visit and all seven moved here within a year...and they all gave the same reason...

"We can't explain it...there is something about this place..." I understand that...now I'm not saying that I'll

move here anytime soon, but I feel what they feel...this is a magical place...

Love to all...

Thomas