Mandilada Village

Fresh Orange Juice!

by mazzap

Fresh oranges are squeezed daily & sold bottled in most supermarkets - also in some smaller shops too! Just 1.5 Euro for 500ml or 3 Euro for 1litre, it is sealed immediately after bottling & kept on ice until purchased.

Truly refreshing & such a bargain - it's a great way to enjoy your daily Vitamin C intake!

Samos, Greece

by hhuisman2

"SAMOS, THE ISLAND OF MANY FACES"

Samos is big and even though I have been there a couple of times I had only seen a small part of it untill my last visit in 2007. The island is situated close to the Turkish coast and in the east of the island you can see the mainland of Turkey. I used to stay in Pythagorion, which is now a busy fishing- and tourist-resort in the southeast of the island. It's a pretty and small village, and my absolute favourite time of the day to be there must be in the morning when it's very, very quiet (where are all the tourists??), and you can sit down with your sleepy face and have your coffee and your breakfast (bacon and eggs) while listening to the waves and looking at the boats in the harbour. It's the best way to slowly wake up. It's surprising how quiet it is at that time of the day considering the amount of tourists that fly to Samos on a package-deal. I have no idea, but I think most of them are in the hotels outside of Pythagorion-town and they only come to town in the evening to have dinner and a cocktail or two, three... We stayed in the Pythagorion-hotel the first couple of times. Nothing really fancy, but it's the only hotel in Pythagorion itself that is situated directly on the (pebble-)beach. I just wanted the view and the possibility to be in the water as soon as possible. In 2007 we noticed that the hotel was closed down though and it was falling apart on its beach.

"Samos holiday destinations"

There are some other nice holiday-destinations on Samos. I haven't seen all of them though. Kokkari is a populair destination. It has got a large pebble beach and several other beaches in the neighbourhood. In the village is a wide choice in hotels and restaurants. Karlovassi I first saw from the ferry on my way to Mykonos, because it made a stop there on the route. It's pretty big and it looked quite interesting, with a very beautiful big church. On inspection it turned out to be a village nice enough to take a brief look at, but not a village where you want to linger for a long time. It is close to some beautiful beaches and interesting places though, like the beach of Potami and the Potami waterfalls. We've also stayed for one night (or more: one day, because we arrived at eight o'clock in the morning after a 9 hour boat-trip, and we just had a little nap there to get some of our energy back) in Samos-town: not really our cup of tea! The town looked nice from the boat, but once we started to explore it we thought it missed the charm you find in some of the other capitals of the Dodekanese island. The buildings in the harbour-front looked pretty impressive, but it was only in the front. In the streets behind the harbour were less attractive. I suppose it is just too large a town for us, and we prefer the smaller villages.

"Samos, the landscape"

Samos has got high mountains, like the Kerketefmountain in the west, which is with its 1437 meter one of the highest mountains in the Aegean sea, and the 1150 meter high Ampelos mountain in the middle of the island. The landscape of Samos is very green, especially in the north along the coast and in the west of the island. Around the mountainvillages of Pirgos and Koumaradei there are still the visible scars of recent bush fires, and naked tree-trunks stand in the middle of green bushes, small new trees and flowers. In Samos there are many pieces of pinetree forrest and olive groves, and also many wild flowers and wild herbs grow on the island. It is an exceptionally green island.