Hotel Hydrele Beach Reviews

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!)

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.