Last Thursday I went with Geroge Mattea and his friend Paolo Christou on a three hour (each way) hike along seaside cliffs through olive groves to two isolated beaches on Samos Island, the smaller Seitani, that you reach first and the larger Seitani that you reach second. You can only reach via this hike unless youcome down from a canyon above them. You can do it is less time but we went slowly. Then we hung out on the beach for a while.
I also learned why the olive groves are terraced with store walls. It did not make since as trees can grow on the side of a hill unlike grapes vines, rice, etc. It turns these walls create a flat catchment area for the falling olives. They put nets under the trees on the flat areas to catch them so the olives do not roll down the hillside or people step on them. It makes great sense.
The canyon where we walked along the narrow path to the monastery in the cave is at the upper end of the canyon that ends at this beach (see Photos of Western Mountains of Samos Island - Interior). You can get down the canyon to the larger Seitani beach through an 8 hour technical descent but you are not able to go back up so you then take the hike out we did today. The beach and the hike were beautiful. At the beach is one climbing sight were you have to go over a significant over hang. They have tested the rock and it seems fine. Now they are getting ready to try it. The pictures are in order of our hike. You can see the overhanging cliff and the mountain that it is on in the large picture below. The cliff is in the lower part of the mountain.
Afterwards we had a great meal overlooking the ocean at sunset as you can see in the last pictures. As I mentioned before If you go to Samos, which I highly recommend, and you want to get off the beaten path and see the mountains and the interior you should contact George Matteau at: [email protected]. He is working on promoting alternative tourism on Samos and will take very good care of you. If you clikc on the smaller photos you make them larger.
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