Greek Island Samos – Votsalakia

The Samos blog of Votsalakia.net

I finally did it. I was thinking about making a blog about Samos, the island i have spent the bigger part of my life on, for a long time now. But as life plays something always came in between.

Who am I?

I’m just another blogger who loves the ‘Pearl of the Aegean Sea’ how i used to call it on the first website i ever made. You guessed right my very first website was about Samos Island. I first came to Samos Island in 1976 that’s a while ago. There where only a few cars, mostly three-wheelers and taxis, on a few very bad roads to spot at this time. “The” TV was placed in the village kafeneion and was in black and white. Kokkari had a show of with 25 “Xeni” – Tourists – at peak time in August. Tourism wasn’t something the people where used too. ’76 was only two years after the fall of the junta in Greece and freedom was still overwhelming.

In this year i enjoyed staying in Kokkari very much. It still was a “Kokkari” ( that’s a baby onion to be planted – couldn’t find the English word for it, sorry) Nowadays it’s more like a field of huge onions though. The development that has taken place on Samos during the last 20 years is unbelievable. After My initial summer in Greece i had to go back to make some money, but i knew that i would come back.

In the years to follow i have moved around quite a bit on Samos. During my time with Greenpeace I’ve stayed in Kokkari and Ag. Konstantionos and Ambelos. Than i moved to Athens for a while, than to Crete and back to Samos. This island just drew me back. On Samos I’ve done all kinds of things, I had my own olive fields, gardens, apple trees, animals and wine. It was a good live and things where simple. Very simple.

Doing Business on Samos Island

To make a long things short; I ended up there where most people on Samos have ended up in one way or the other, in the tourist industry. Now to say that upfront, I have had my share of problems to work for other people and get paid some lousy salary while my boss drives a Mercedes. So i wasn’t willing to work for a boss and was looking for a partner instead. Just suits me better. In the meantime I had gotten married, and it wasn’t looking out for myself alone anymore but also for my beloved wife, so it had to be something good.

Our first attempt was on a restaurant, I leave the name out here with respect of the owner. That was my first business experience with a Greek business partner and it lasted the full length of six weeks than we where out of there. Attempt number two was a lot better though. We meet a guy on the beach… Amdits.. Yes that was the year 1991 and the year when the umbrella industry started to develop. Great idea i must say. After we won the auction for three beaches at the minimum price (there was nobody else to bid) for a total of four years we where setup. So we set there in the sand for the first season renting out umbrellas and lousy old beach beds for the first summer. The umbrellas where old and so where the beds and had come from Costas, our new partner.

The beaches where at the south west end of Samos in Votsalakia. In ’91 tourism had just begun to set in to an otherwise quiet “Kampos” Agriculture was the name of the business. After the Hotel Votsalakia with it’s owner Vangelis Isidoros started to bring tourists to Kamops things began to change fast end entirely. One of the first things that changed was the name. Kampos Marathokampos became “Votsalakia” named after the Hotel that started to bring money and work to the place.

After four years on the beach, that is going to be a story of it’s own, we where not alone anymore at the auction for the beach. The local people had meanwhile gotten wind of what we where carrying away from our three beaches, Psili Amos, Limnionas and Votsalakia East (Nick the Greek). We knew there would be quite some people coming to the auction and neither of was ready to make that commitment for another three years. We went to the auction not to bid but out of curiosity, just to witness the price rising by 5 times. And it was once again Vangelis Isidoros who made the cut.

New Ways in Votsalakia

After our initial four years in Votsalakia we had seen the place developing, so we didn’t want to leave and had to do something else. Votsalakia was and still is advertised (with all rights) as achildren and family friendly holiday resort. Shallow sandy beaches and most of the accommodation have a kitchen or kitchenette. So what was closer than building a Mini Golf Course with a cocktail bar? We found the land in February and started building an 18 hole mingolf course and a bar wit the help of a few friends. We opened on first of June 1996 in the same year and worked almost the full season.

So we had our new business running for two years, had build new parts to it and everything was good. In 1998 our landlord Dimitris Franzescos died, a very friendly man who had help us a lot in starting up the business, and his widow asked us if we would want to open a second place on the beach. So we did, and the Kalivi Beach Cafe was born. We opened Kalivi in 1999 and ran it until 2006 for seven years.

That was the short version Check back for news and stories and … here are some more reasons …

• If you have something to say about Samos or you took some good shots, i will be happy to publish it here.
• If you have a business in Votsalakia or elsewhere on Samos i will be happy to give your business a spot on my blog in exchange for a place on your website or some small donation.
• If you search for Votsalakia on the net you will find Votsalakia.net on the very first page of just about every search engine, so promoting your business here might be a good idea.
• If you run a blog about Samos or any other Greek island, I will be happy to add you to my blogroll. In any of the above cases please contact the webmaster.
• If you leave a comment on my articles and you have a website, you can ad your url to generate a back link. Nofollow is turned off, but if you use the comment box for spam your post will be deleted.
• And if you now use this button it will be an easy thing to find your way back here.

Once again the beautiful island of Samos has been on fire! Thanks to the many fire fighters and to the Greek army, all fires are out! There is no danger and all tourists are back in their hotels by now and enjoy the beaches of Samos.

The latest fire had started on Monday evening in Marathokampos and Limnionas and is under control. This means there are no fires burning currently on Samos Island. Because of the still strong wind, the fire brigades remain in place to prevent any new outbreaks of fire in the area. 26 firemen, 13 fire vehicles, 88 people from the forest department, 70 volunteers, most of them from the volunteer fire brigade in Marathokampos, and four helicopters where fighting the fire for the whole night.

Only three days later the fires started on the other end of Samos and in an area where the wind gain speed going downhill towards the villages. The catastrophic event began on Monday, in the late afternoon, when behind the villages Marathokampos and Limnionas Beach the fire bells rang. Soon after the flames where seen to come down from the hills to the first houses of the villages. The strong winds from the north, that are typical for this season, they are called Meltemi drove the fire forward with speed. Since there are only two streets leading out of the area and goes right through the village of Marathokampos, the evacuation of tourists from hotels was initiated. Tourists got escorted to the waiting busses and with help of the police and the Greek army everything went smooth and without any problems.

As reason for the outbreak of the fire in Votsalakia, on the island of Samos was a family of beekeepers and a friend. Aparently a spark from the bee-keepers’ device to create smoke had ignited the fire when the wind blew in. 10,000 acres of farmland and forests have burned down in less than two days. Thankfully nobody was badly injured. According to our source in Samos, the bee-keepers son was a fire fighter himself.

Samos was just recovering from a large fire that broke out over the village of Kokkari last Tuesday. A lot of help has come very fast from Athens this time. Troupes of fire fighters with fire trucks and equipment have arrived in Samos as fast as humanly possible and the fire was extinguished on Friday the 28th of July. Now that all fires are out, we all hope that we have seen enough fires on Samos for this year!

Top Picture by Carl Osbourn
Gallery Pictures by Karin Bentheim and Michaela Urben