Rieke and Benno’s last day was spent on Samos, the “rough cut diamond” of the Eastern Sporades. A beautiful island, very green, high mountains. It took me a while to realize why everything looked so good. It’s because on Samos, houses have real red tile roofs, rather than the typical Greek flat roofs without tile. Gives the towns a civilized, almost Italian look. We got to Samos via Lipsi, another one of those small, attractive islands (but no tile roofs). Less touristy perhaps than some others. We had our best dinner there so far.

The most interesting thing to see in Samos is a tunnel, constructed in 550 B.C.! It was part of the water system of the ancient town of Samos, now called Pythagoreo after the famous mathematician Pythagoras, who is from there. It was used to carry spring water from one side of the mountain to the other side where the town was located. It is more than one kilometer long and it was dug from both sides. In 550 B.C., they managed to have both sides meet in the middle, an unbelievable feat. The tunnel consist of a walkway and a deep trench that used to carry the water. The trench is some 12 feet deeper at the exist than at the entrance so that water would flow naturally. You can crawl into the tunnel and walk all the way to the other end but we let it be good after 10 minutes. Nothing for the claustrophobic or faint of heart! Papi was part of the underground excursion!