I stayed for 3 nights in Pythagoreio start of December 2021. The weather was rather unstable. I walked the 6 kilometers from Pythagoreio to The Heraion along the sea. The road runs along the back of the airport and is very quiet, later there is a bicycle track all the way to The Heraion which is more pleasant to walk than the pebble beach.

Entrance in winter is 3€ (€6 in summer) and I was accompanied by three kind stray dogs on my visit. There is not so much left but the explanations are good and with some attention the stones started to 'live'. There is just one pillar standing but to imagine the full temple consisted of 155 columns twice as high as the current one, one could imagine the awe Herodotus must have felt when he first saw this temple.

I got soaked on the way back and after changing clothes I went to the archeology museum in Pythagoreio, just a few hundred meters from my apartment. It is a modern museum (2005), full with objects found in Pythagoreio, and the exhibitions are well organized. Part of the museum are open air excavations with the remains of the Roman settlement and the start of the Sacred Way which led all the way to The Heraion. Even walking back from the museum for a few hunderd meters, I got soaked again and got wet shoes from wading through the water running through the streets. But of course, this is but a small price to pay for the noble cause of visiting a world heritage site.

Despite the well organized museum in Pythagoreio, I was more impressed with the old-fashioned museum in Vathy, which I visited next day by taking the bus. This museum is entirely dedicated to the finds from The Heraion, and costs €2 (€4 in summer). I spent over 2 hours here, closely followed by the friendly attendant who switched on and off the lights as I went through the exhibitions and the rain poored down from the black thunderclouds outside. I was particularly impressed by the wooden artifacts which apparently survived 2600 years of these rains and thunderstorms.

On Sunday morning the sun shone brightly and I climbed to both entrances of the tunnel of Eupalinos. I got soaked again, but this time from the sweat and humidity. The tunnel is only open until the end of November but I could peer through the fences, on the south side it seemed to be possible to see the aquaduct proper, on the north side the service tunnel, but perhaps this is a modern entrance, I could not be sure.

In Pythagoreio there are scattered remains in many places, Roman baths, early Christian basilicas and cemetries, the Agora, the castle and tower, the fortifications and walls on the hills but there is just an occasional sign, no explanations, so it is more or less just heaps of stones and it is hard to make out what was what. There are many signposted hikes on Samos, mostly on the more lush north side of the island, but hike number 31 focuses on Pythagoreio and passes past the entrances of the tunnel. Unfortunately I did not have enough time for the full 11 kilometer hike, but I saw signs pointing to an ancient quarry and the Roman aquaduct which seemed interesting too.