The nightmare of fire has finished and life continues in Greece. It is already September but still summer for us. Still people at the beaches and fun at the sea.

The window to my world will open today to present you some more of Samos and to show you a miracle of the ancient world, the Efpalinos Tunnel which you can visit in Pythagorion.

Efpalinos Tunnel is a water reservoir with an underground tunnel of 1036 meters in length. It was part of an extensive water distribution system for the ancient city of Samos, which had a population of 150000 people and according to other historical sources 300000 inhabitants.

In the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. Samos was an important part of Greece, prosperous then too, with a much admired capital city and with many cultural achievements: Pythagoras came from here. The walls enclosed a city, on the south coast and then called Samos also, that stretched more than 1500 metres - about a mile - west from its harbour and had a North-South width of 750 meters, half a mile, between its southern edge, the sea, and the high ground to the north.

The village on that site today clusters around the harbor and occupies no more than one-tenth of the area of the ancient city, and is no longer called Samos: that name is reserved for the more important newer town over on the north side of the island, where the island's business activities are largely concentrated. Besides tourists, the present village exploits fishing.

Pythagoras left Samos in about 530 B.C., after a possible unpleasantness with the island's ruler. Ten or twelve years later, the `tyrant' of Samos, Polycrates, engaged the engineer Efpalinos to carry out various public works. One of these was to build a mole and modernize the harbor and hence make the port of Samos city more practical, more usable.

Polycrates also engaged Eupalinos on another project: to build a tunnel. The northern walls of the town ran along a mountain ridge about 250-300 meters high, and at the western extremity of this small mountain there was a spring on the north side, called Agiade today. Polycrates wanted the water piped into the town.

Eupalinos organized the work so that the tunnel was begun from both sides of the hill and the two teams met in the middle. The estimates for the time required range from 5 to 15 years: the mountain is solid limestone and one has to suppose that many of the slaves doing the work died.

I have visited the area of the tunnel many times in my life but for more than 40 years I couldn't pass the tight and dark entrance to enter and see the tunnel. I was not sure if I had claustrophobia but that was just a fear which I had to fight and after my forty birthday I bypassed it and I entered for first time at one of the miracles of the ancient world.

They are all in our mind. We need in many occasions in our life to bypass our fears. We must stay tough and strong when we face problems and characters build like this tunnel... constant and progressive.

When you visit the tunnel it is not easy to not think about the slaves who dug the tunnel: with the tools of the 6th century B.C., it was impossible for me to imagine that it could be done. The problem of how the lower tunnel was dug engaged us, and anyway, why dig an upper tunnel if you're going to dig a lower one that was designed to do the important work (carry water into the city)?

One possible answer: the upper one was dug first, then the shafts dug down to give access to the lower level, where a much more accurate line was necessary as well.

The discover of the Efpalinos Tunnel was the beginning of a new era for Samos, which you know very well that is also my birth place and as I continue to write, it is also "My paradise". Tourists came from all over the world to see the tunnel and met the beauty of the island. It is a miracle of the ancient world and a place to visit when you visit Samos.