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Sámos: Vathy and East Coast

The capital and along the Mykale Straits

View of Samos town, capital of Samos island, Greece.

Vathy (Sámos Town)

Names here are a tad confusing. In ancient times the city of Sámos was what is now Pythagório. The present capital and port, set in a sweeping amphitheatre of green hills, inherited the name a few decades ago; when the autonomous ‘Hegemony’ moved here from Chóra in 1834, it was called Vathy, ‘the deep’ which is still commonly used, while the upper, older town is now Áno Vathy.

If the immediate port area, once mostly used for exporting tobacco, seems permeated with unfulfilled expectations the upper higgledy-piggledy narrow lanes of Áno Vathy have kept their atmosphere, linked with white and pastel houses covered with weathered tile roofs.

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Sámos

Text © Dana Facaros

Images by Adam Carr at English Wikipedia, Ancaeus, Pe-sa, Samos Voice, Tomisti