To Kokkari for Pizza

 

Kokkari is beautiful and probably the most popular tourist destination on Samos.  At least once every year we drive down to Kokkari just for pizza.  The entire waterfront is rimmed with small hotels, bars and restaurants.  Our favorite is Moscato, a quiet place at the farthest end of the peninsula, away from the crowds.  The pizza there is crispy thin and the fried calamari appetizer they serve is the best I have ever tasted.

 

 

Moscato is owned and operated by Sylvia, a Kokkari native who spent most of her working life in Australia.  Like so many of the island 'repats,' her English is accented with a Greco-Australian twang.  Sylvia inherited the building that houses Moscato from her mother who was born in Vourliotes.

 

Season 2018 - Samos, Greece

Leaving Athens - photo by Kathy, window seat



Arriving on Samos - photo by Kathy

We just touched down on Samos early yesterday morning.  The flights from Jacksonville to New York and Athens had gone well: no delays, no tight connections, no drama.  To shake the jetlag we spent a night in the Sofitel Hotel at the Athens airport, then caught a 45 minute hop to Samos that departed at first light Wednesday morning.  The carrier is a no-frills airline that has a fleet of stubby propeller driven planes that specialize in getting passengers to the Greek Islands beyond Athens.  The accommodations are a little rustic and can make the trip feel like being in an Indiana Jones movie.  The runways on some islands (like Samos) are often short, and require some hard braking after touchdown, which I suspect, could be a little stressful for white-knuckle flyers.  The smaller airports here are much more passenger friendly than those at the big international hubs, and we are always glad to arrive: the sky is always bright, and the first breath of island air always smells like a sweet mixture of figs, White Sparkle flowers, butterscotch and hay.




White Sparkle flowers, used by the Greek
Orthodox monks here, for making incense.