Latest Reviews for Potokaki

Angela studios ok but owners need to clean studios a bit more often and empty the bins daily. A lovely resort but only if you like walking otherwise a car is a must. Taverners are guite a walk away.Beach is pebbly.We went in june 2006 and weather was great.

Resort

Not much of a place really. Pebble beach across the road with a noisy music bar populated by the young and fashionable Greeks and a few apartments and hotels. One reasonable restaurant and a nice chilled music bar down the road. Couple of mini-markets and a bus stop.

Main resort is Pythagoria, but don't be taken in by the claims of a 2km walk. Down to the harbour it's over 4km - we know because we walked it and checked taxi readouts! There is a bus which is quite regular during the evening, but only until about 8pm. Costs 1 euro to the outskirts of the town. The walk itself skirts the beach and airport, but the road can get very busy and is not safe for young children. It's a real slog during the day and a nuisance at night if you are dressed up for the evening, so most nights we got the bus in and a taxi back, which we hadn't budgeted for. Taxi costs 2-3 euros. When we challenged the rep about the brochure description, she stated that the brochure reference to 2km was to the outskirts of the town. In reality most of the bars and restaurants are a further 2km away.

The Apartments

Typically Greek. When we arrived we were rather disappointed as ours faced a dusty carpark, and another was very dark, with a cramped bathroom and a patio that looked out on stacked toilet rolls and half completed buidings. The rep was actually very efficient and found an alternative room for the second week with a balcony overlooking the pool. The third apartment was fine.

Air con available in rooms at a cost. They did get very hot, but we did without. Decent beds and reasonable storage. Safety deposit box to hire. Unusually in basic apartments there was a TV with Greek channels and MTV, which our 13 year old loved! Small kitchenette, but huge variation in utensils between rooms. Not an issue as we didn't cook, but would be difficult to prepare a meal.

Excellent standard of cleaning. Staff were highly efficient and even washed up for us, which we found rather embarrassing.

Nice small pool and free sunbeds, but not many of these. Pool not lit at night unless Greeks around. To our annoyance we found that various young Greeks came across from the music bar on the beach to use the pool during the late afternoon and they were rather anti-social with regard to jumping and diving into the pool and soaking anyone and anything around it. Apparently the pool is open to the bar customers, which is not stated in the brochure and at weekends the bar is very popular. fortunately the music stops in the evenings and the crowds fade away.

Apartments are close to the airport, but we found this interesting. You get some cracking views of planes taking off and landing, but it isn't really intrusive and not too busy.

Pythagoria

Lovely around the harbour. Lots of restaurants and bars, some nicer than others, but all pretty similar. Try Rosseto's at the end of the harbour. Very nice owner and great cocktails. Rest of town is rather one-dimensional. Main street is full of car rental places, mini markets and tourist shops. Some nice restaurants off the beaten track. Anna's Gardens is lovely but the service was incredibly slow. Restaurant recommended by rep, where initial meeting takes place is also very good, located in the centre of the town. Most restaurants we tried were generally good if you like Greek food and quite reasonably priced, but the days of the ultra-cheap Greek meal are dying. Four of us are vegetarian and in common with all Greek resorts,we had no problems finding dishes to suit; although the choice can become a bit bland over a 2 week period.

Drinks prices varied. Expect to pay about 6-8euros for a cocktail, 3-4euros for local wine and 2.50-4euros for beer.

Out and About

Great walk to the monastary and tunnel. A long, hot trek, but amazing views. Be aware that the tunnel is closed on a Monday. We weren't aware, so we only saw the gates! Castle and church also worth exploring.

Bus to Samos town is cheap and it's worth visitng the town for a change of scenery. Kokari is nice, but Karlovassi isn't worth the journey and we came straight back. Bus timetable is erratic and can't be relied on, so it's best to be flexible and relaxed about the whole experience.

Don't book the trips with Thomson, you can find the same cheaper elsewhere. We did a superb boat trip with a real character called Captain Janis, which included fruit, wine, two beach stops a full lunch and ouzo! Best excursion we've ever had on a holiday. Look out for the boat with the tortoise and ship's cats!

Probably best to hire a car. we didn't bother as there were 6 of us and no cheap MPVs, but people we met said that the island was worth exploring.

Overall a good holiday, but be aware of the walk from the apartments and the fact that the island can get very windy. Some people loved Samos and vowed to return, but we felt that we'd had better Greek experiences in nicer places.

thomson holidays certainly give a colourful discription to the location of the nikos studios near potokaki they discribe it as set against pine clad mountains with far reaching views out to sea but what they dont tell you is that the airport other hotels and building and the roadways are in the way of the far reaching views and as for the far reaching sea views you need to stand in front of the buildings on the beech before you get the sea views
potokaki is a strool of about 400mtrs but it was also a ghost town when on most days we were lucky to see no more then half a dozen people walking down the street

thomson also say that potokaki has shops and restaurants it has a total of three shops two of which are for what of a better word supermarkets and poorly stocked other then the restaurant in the main hotel there was one other again this was pot luck as to what was available on the menu and you could not even get a bowl of soup the nikos studios a family run accommidation of 17 rooms in two blocks the newer of these blocks is presented well with in reason but the second block are very poor and even basic would be to good a word to discribe the rooms
the rooms are smaller the furniture had seen better days you could not draw the curtains back from the windows because everybody walking by your room could see in

the airport was so close that you could collect your luggage from the plane walk across the runway hop over the fence and check into your room and the planes started arriving from 06:30 in the morning
the local bus service runs from outside the studios once a day but as it was near the end of the season never saw a bus for the whole of the 2 weeks we were there
the beech bar run by the owners of the studios provide bar snacks between the hours of 10am and 8pm but what they dont tell you is that these and other items of so called entertainment stop being provided to the guests of nikos studios at the end of september

finally the surrounding area of nikos studios looks more like a building site and dumping ground than a holiday resort so as the saying goes buyer beware

The Hotel
The Hydrele Beach Hotel is wonderful and very friendly. Its location could not better. The beach is literally just across the road and has its own beach bar, which is run during the day, usually by Sophia or the very charismatic Eleni!
I could not fault my room. It was large and comfortable with air conditioning and a mosquito net which you can pull across the balcony door.
There is a fridge and safety deposit box and the bathroom was equipped with a shower, wc, wash basin and hairdryer.
The restaurant was fine and the food perfectly acceptable. Breakfast was a choice between continental or cooked. You can eat there in the evening for 15 euros if you are on bed and breakfast. Look out for Ria, one of the people waiting at table.
There is a Greek night every Wednesday and costs 25 euros. It consists of free wine and a wonderful Greek buffet meal. There is some traditional music and dancing and if you are lucky, Eleni might do a 'table dance' for the crowds!
I will be back there next year!

The Airport and aircraft noise
The Hydrele Beach is right next door to Samos Airport. However, as has been pointed out in other reviews, it is not a major intrusion. I do need to point out, though, that operating hours are not quite as stated in some reviews. The first flight in is usually at or just after 6.30am(mail and papers)usually followed by the first Athens flight. There are occasional flights after 8.00pm too. During my fortnight, the Greek Air Force paid three visits, twice with Hercules planes and once at 6.40am with three fast fighter jets which did a couple of low passes over the airport!

The notorious landing!
Our Captain made two attempts to land but eventually diverted to Kos where I spent my first night.
The approach and landing are tricky particularly in windy conditions. The plane comes in overhead the airfield and then flies out to sea a little before curving back to the right and descending for the final approach around the edge of the mountains, finally executing a sharp right hand turn down onto the runway. All in all, quite an interesting experience!

The Island
I will make this brief. The island is wonderful and very scenic. There were some areas of the island I did not see but what I did see was well worth it.
Pythagorio is very atmospheric but a little chaotic with traffic sometimes. Look out for the two dogs that chase traffic down the main street too!
The harbour was great with a wide choice of tavernas and bars.
Samos Town is worth a visit for the day(a bus goes from outside the Hydrele at 10.15am with a fare of 1 euro 40 cents).
Kokkari is worth going to as well but give Karlovasi a miss.
Finally...

Cats
Like most Greek islands, Samos has its fair share of cats. If you like cats then a good place to go is the museum square in Samos Town where there are an abundance of them, some friendly, some not so!
The Hydrele has its own cat too(look out for the black cat with the half missing tail!)

We booked this holiday for our honeymoon and we wanted somewhere different than the usual beach holiday resort and one where there wouldn't be too many kids (ours were with Nanny for the week) and this certainly fitted the bill.

It was the best holiday we have ever had, the island is fantastic,(maybe partly due to having no kids!!) the scenery and views are breathtaking. We went on holiday with our best friends Lynn and Geoff. Geoff is disabled and uses a wheelchair occasionally, which we were concerned about, but we didn't have to worry everyone was more than helpful and friendly, (although the pavements are a bit hard to negotiate at times due to shops having goods on them)

We hired a car for the week and explored the island, even parts of the island that perhaps we should have had a 4 x 4 for!!, but it was worth it, the views we saw you wouldn't see on the organised trips.

We fould the whole island to be very clean, every bar that we went into was spotlessly clean.

The apartments were quite basic, but very clean. Towels were provided and even a tea towel. There are only 2 blocks of apartments with about 17 rooms in total so the pool never got very busy.

The resort of Pythagorio was excellent, we found a restaurant on the harbour and went there nearly every day, The Pythagorian Taverna, the owner was a spitting image of Bobby Ball!! Great food and good service and reasonably priced. In fact everywhere food seemed to be reasonably priced.

We would definately return to Samos again, its perfect and no lager louts in sight!!

We have given the resort an average rating because there is nothing much there.The beach is sand and pebbles and there are a couple of bars.It is half an hours pleasant walk to wonderful Pythagorion and a little further to the lovely hillside village of Hora.

We found the Nicos Studios to be clean and comfortable with a good sized room and plenty of occasional furniture. There was always hot water and the pool and gardens were well maintained.Safety deposit boxes are available in every room for 15 Euros a week.Although this accomodation is next to the airport the noise wasn't intrusive and was confined to daytime.It has the advatage of a short transfer time.

We hired a car for 4 days which was just right to see all the island.We also went on a boat trip to Samiopoula.We spent the rest of the fortnight walking,swimming and relaxing.We came back from the holiday very refreshed and wanting to return.

Our second visit to Samos and the first to the Pythagorian area.
This visit was much better than the first( which was to Kambos some 8 years ago).
Two main reasons for this:
the weather was very much cooler this time
and Pythagorian is a mch better resort area than Kambos, at least for us.

A word of warning to start .
The landing at Samos airport is not for the faint hearted.
The approach is round a ring of hills with some very interesting manoveres before touchdown.
If you are trying to land in windy conditions ,it may take more than one go to actually get on the ground!
We got to within 10 feet of the runway before the Pilot decided to pull out and go round for another try.He got down OK the second time, but the passengers on the plane went very quiet whilst he tried.
As for the holiday in total that was the only bad news.The rest was top class.
The hotel,resort,beach,weather,car hire,eating out and the Island in general were all that we wanted.First class.

Hydrele Beach Hotel is very much as the book says.
It is clean and friendly and has good food.It is close to the beach,the rooms are big enough and are well and regularly cleaned.The pool area is good,there are plenty of sunbeds and a very good pool bar/snack bar.
However, the Hotel is very close to Samos airport.
You will experience noise from the airport during the day, although there are very few flights and the airport is closed from 8pm until 8am.

There are two small supermarkets within 50 yards of the hotel and the sand/shingle beach is across the road 30 yards away.
You can eat in the evening at the Hotel or at Tavernas locally.
If you want the more varied choice of Pythagorion town, then be prepared for a 30 min walk.
The walk is flat and for the most part on well lit footpaths but for a short section of the way, a torch might be a good idea.

We found the evening walk into town to be no problem and part of our evening out.
There are some very good places to eat in town, both on the harbour side in up the streets off the main street.Food is varied and not too expensive.
We hired a car for 4 days to tour the island and this cost 92 euros all inclusive for a Nissan Micra.
4 days is plenty long enough to see the Island.
If you are interested in the Greek and Roman history of Samos, then the Pythagorion area is for you.
There are many areas to visit, but the pick of these must be the remains of the Roman Bathhouse in Pythagorion and the Temple of Hera at Ireon.

All in all we were very well satisfied with Samos, our Hotel and the resort.
We will probably return to Samos some time in the future and when we do we will probably use the Hydrele Beach Hotel again.