Samos Holidays and Beaches Guide.

The Aegean Island of Samos has probably got all you could wish for whilst on holiday - good food, scenery and those beautiful Samos beaches.

For a start, a holiday on Samos offers good reliable weather, excellent beaches, marvellous scenery for a day out touring or sightseeing on the island - and the islanders we met whilst out and about were extremely friendly and welcoming. Samos Island has excellent tavernas with good, simple and reasonably priced food - and equally importantly for us at least has great tracks and paths available for a day's out walking too.
There is nothing better when on holiday than to have a day out hill, beach and path walking followed by a nice swim and sunbathe on a naturist beach before heading back with the prospect of enjoying an evening out in a friendly Greek taverna and a couple of ouzos or ?.

Samos Kokkari. We stayed at Kokkari (pictures above) during June while things were still quiet and really loved the place. It has two stony beaches and a working fishing harbour which is surrounded by numerous tavernas, bars, shops and lots of alleys. Whilst on holiday on Samos a really excellent way to finish off the day's walking or beaching and sunbathing is to take a slow meander around the harbour, eventually spending a few hours eating and drinking some wine at one of the excellent tavernas and then having another meander around - totally relaxing. Kokkari is also a very good start off point for many walks some of which we have described on our walks pages - see below for a page link. Samos Town lies to the east of Kokkari and is split in two in that the "new" part is centred round the harbour and has the usual tavernas and shops, whilst the "old" part - which is called Vathi is situated on the hillside and you will discover the traditional Greek Island narrow winding paved streets and alleys here.

Leaving Samos town heading eastwards the road winds up to the Monastery of Zoodochou Pigis. (You will find many monasteries named Zoodochou Pigis all round the Greek Islands - the name translates to "Life Giving Source" i.e. a water supply.). The road then goes back down to B. Mourtia where there is a small fishing harbour.

On the south coast there is another delightful little village and a harbour at Posidonio where you will find several tavernas - also perhaps of particular interest is just how close you are to Turkey here.

This is a really lovely little spot to stop off for meandering and of course a drink etc. There is a sandy beach at Psili Amos but the area was crawling with cars and bikes and in the end we gave up trying to get onto it. There is a largish lake near here called Alyki Wetland which is also known as Flamingo Lake - however there were two problems, firstly the lake had virtually dried up (we were there in June so perhaps not a real surprise) thus no flamingos and secondly there were odds and ends of rusty Greek military vehicles scattered around and plenty of "no photo" signs. This was somewhat surprising since all around there were signs of holiday apartment building going on - presumably one or the other will win out...

Pythagirio is further along the south coast and is very much one of Samos's main holiday and tourist locations - the town has a harbour and plenty of tavernas, shops and accommodation. There is a sandy beach starting here which proceeds along the coast and runs alongside Samos's airport at one point. There is a track alongside the beach which is driveable but this becomes a dead end (at least it was but who knows what the bulldozers have been up to..). At the other end of the beach is a small fishing village called Ireo which again lots of tavernas and accommodation.
Around a kilometre heading west out of Kokkari you will see a parking area and taverna at the top of a hill - if you take the steep path down from here you come to a split beach called Tsamadou, the left hand side is for those who are shy and the right hand side is for us naturists who like to globally warm ourselves as much as possible. This Samos beach is composed of heavy pebble - and note these pebbles become very hot at times so take flip-flops - there are sun-chairs and umbrellas available on the beach at a reasonable price and there is also a small taverna where you can buy cold drinks, snacks and so on.

Continuing west on the road you pass the junctions for Vourliotes and Manolates (mentioned on our Samos Walks Page) before coming to the fishing harbour of Agh. Konstantinos - another small Samos fishing village. Towards the end of this village is a side road which leads to the Byzantine Church of Ag Konstantinos. Another small road a little further out of the fishing harbour leads you to Stavrinades - also mentioned as visited on part of a walk described on our Samos Walks page. Back on the road heading west you pass the church of Agh. Dimitrios before arriving at the largish town of Karlovasi and after that you reach Potami.

At Potami there is a marked track to the Byzantine church - the track continues past the church and follows the stream inland - apparently this eventually leads to some waterfalls but you do have to swim to get to them.
The road through Potami continues for a little while but then the tarmac surface ends and the road becomes a track - you can park around here and we have another walk giving some information on this on our walks page linked just below.

Please also take a look at our Samos Holiday Walks and Photos topic.

External Links
Samos by Greeka
Samos Greece Travel Guide from Greek Island Postcards