The Aegean Island of Samos

Samos is recommended for people who like history, architecture, and finding things out for themselves.

I’d arrived at the town of Pythagorio on the ferry from Patmos.

Visiting the area around Pythagorio I was struck at how many of the substantial ruins didn’t have any written explanation as to their origin. There’d be a small acropolis in the middle of a field, a large section of town wall by the roadside, or a Roman baths close to a hotel, with little or no information as to their age or significance.

The irony is that the best known ancient site, the Heraion a UNESCO listed World Heritage Site, whilst extensive, has only one heavily restored column to give the place a sense of proportion.

The Archaeological Museum in Pythagorio has two floors and an extensive outdoor section where the walls, dwellings, and temples of Ancient Samos can be viewed from a raised walkway. Indoors, my highlights from the collection include 7 terracotta dolls dating from 500 BCE, a vase in the shape of a running hare, grave stele with palmettes on top, a large marble sarcophagus in the shape of a temple, a large status of the Roman Emperor Trajan, and a hoard of 300 gold Byzantine coins found in a bronze jug.

At the western end of Pythagorio, right by the shoreline, is the castle built by a local strongman Lykourgos Logothetis in the 19th Century. Next door are the ruins of a Christian church from the 6th Century AD. In the nearby cemetery, the lavishly adorned marble graves showed the last resting place of the wealthy. The coffins of the not-so-well-off were piled high in two small rooms, whose doors had been left ajar in case someone wanted to pay their respects.

Heading back into town, walking up the hill and then taking another road out of Pythagorio in a westerly direction, I came to the Panayia Spillani monastery and the attraction here, other than the cats lying on piles of carpets

, is the subterranean shrine to the Virgin Mary, found about 100 yards inside a cave.