The Popping of Champagne Corks

It is a warm sunny September day on the island of Symi in the Dodecanese. Visitors off the day excursion boats from Rhodes are strolling around the harbour, fanning themselves with their sunhats and discussing where to eat. Long stay visitors, on the other hand, are exploring Symi’s beaches or heading for the hills, armed with new copies of Lance Chilton’s Walks in Symi (now in stock at Symi Visitor Accommodation) and packed lunches from the Olive Tree.

With the Greek Election coming up on 4 October the newspaper shop is busy and every public television has an avid audience. When I come to work in the morning I find fliers stuck in the door grille and littering the lanes. Visitors who will be in Greece during the election period may find it an interesting experience, particularly as the outcome is usually celebrated with fireworks (and, in the islands, dynamite) by supporters of the winning party which may be a little alarming to those accustomed to nothing noisier than the popping of champagne corks.

The October ferry schedules on the internet have been updated and Scandinavian visitors to Symi will be relieved to see that they will be able to get across to Symi from Rhodes on Sunday afternoons for at least the first half of the month.

Have a good week.
Regards,

Adriana

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Manuela Kemp and Tjerk (TJ) Lammers

We have now received authorization to put up photographs of the wedding of Manuela Kemp and Tjerk (TJ) Lammers which took place on Symi on 12 September 2009. The official photographs taken by Albert den Iseger for Prive, the Dutch gossip magazine which had exclusive rights to the wedding coverage, are now available on line.
 

For more photographs taken of this wedding by Symi Visitor Accommodation please see the Out and About pages.

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Watching Time Roll By

It is a pleasantly cool and breezy day on Symi. The clouds are gathering and there is the possibility of a thundershower later this afternoon or evening. The water boat is alongside the clock tower and yachts and gulets are milling about, making space on the jetty for the day excursion boats arriving from Rhodes.

The Symi Visitor Accommodation office has two balconies. Apart from the one next to my desk with its pots of jasmine and geraniums and well-known views of Symi harbour, there is also one on the other side of the building, above the entrance and overlooking the lane. This view is not as bustling as the one of the harbour, but it is interesting in its own way. A bougainvillea in the grounds of St John’s church has climbed high into the cypress tree, shooting bracts of bright colour through the dark green foliage. The big rope of fat heads of garlic that have been draped over the scaffolding of the new Taxas supermarket building to keep away bad luck has weathered the summer sun remarkably well and looks as plump as it did in the spring. The inscrutable sphinx on the apex of the old building next door to our office is the ultimate Symi cat, serenely watching time roll by. Dino’s collection of odds and ends for fishermen and sailors is as cheerful as ever.

The long range forecast includes some passing showers as some of the stormy weather currently being experienced in the central Mediterranean, southern Italy and Ionian may reach Rhodes and Symi in the next few days. Temperatures remain in the mid to high twenties – not too hot but not chilly either. The rest of Greece has been experiencing occasional thunderstorms and heavy autumnal showers for some time but the weather should remain mild on Symi for some weeks yet.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

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The Delights of Symi

It is another sparkling blue and white September day on Symi and the day tripper boats are rattling anchors in Yialos harbour. A cool northerly breeze is tugging at the flags and the Gorgona is rocking gently on her mooring in the swell. The walking season is well under way and coming down the Kali Strata this morning I was overtaken by earnestly booted hikers armed with walking poles and rucksacks heading for Nimborio ‘over the top’. Yialos, Harani , Pedi and Nimborio have been full of yachts over the past few days as a strong northerly wind in the Aegean has encouraged sailors to sample the delights of Symi rather than slog to windward in an evil Mediterranean chop. Last night Pedi bay looked like a floating village with all the twinkling riding lights and the captain of the water boat had to do some slick work at the helm to pick his way through the throng.

September has always been a popular month with the island’s regular visitors and this year is no exception, despite the poor exchange rate and ‘credit crunch’. Visitors may be taking shorter holidays but for many a ‘Symi fix’ is an essential rather than a luxury, an opportunity to relax, resume old friendships and make new ones and many Symiots are grateful for their loyal support in a difficult year.

Today’s photographs were taken from the balcony of Symi Visitor Accommodation. Power lines across the view are very much a characteristic of modern Symi. Perhaps one day the prohibition on overhead lines will be enforced by the Archaeologia, with all the disruption that that will inevitably entail, but in the meantime we have grown accustomed to having lines and cables swooping across the view.

Have a good week.
Regards,

Adriana

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Tomorrow's Daisies

It is a bright sunny day on Symi. The recent rain has swept away all the dust from the atmosphere, sharpening colours and crisping outlines. Clean white sails glide over an inky blue sea as distant flotillas run downwind to Rhodes. Some quite substantial sailing boats are cruising in the area at the moment as you can see from this dawn photo of Pedi bay. This one has some very fancy lights on the rigging - particularly striking during last night’s power cut when it was the only object visible when looking down at Pedi from the top of Chorio. Work is continuing steadily on the marina (just visible on the left hand side of the photograph) and the concrete mixers are busy surfacing the area where the utility buildings will be. The sports stadium in Chorio is also proceeding rapidly and plasterers have already started work on the internal brick walls. The angel on the mountain has been doing some wing waggling of late so perhaps the wind turbine is about to come into operation. It is certainly impressive on those rare occasions when it has been seen in motion.

Last week’s rain had the anticipated effect on the island’s vegetation and the grass is back, as are tomorrow’s daisies, forcing their way through the fallen leaves of summer drought. Symi will become increasingly verdant over the next few weeks as temperatures remain in the mid twenties until November and conditions for growth are optimal. Aubergines and peppers are ripening in the vegetable gardens in the Pedi valley and the last of the grapes hang heavy on the vines. The shops are still selling Greek plums, peaches and nectarines and long red pointy Florina peppers.

Symi is bustling with regular visitors and Georgio’s tavern in Chorio was packed with familiar faces last night, all peering at each other by torch light in the gloom until suddenly the power came back on to a round of applause.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

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The Sun is Out

The sun is out and Symi is steaming in the September sunshine. While other parts of Greece have experienced disastrous floods and mudslides, Symi received 25 mm of rain and the whole island looks freshly washed. The cars and bikes have lost the summer’s dust and the trees have revived visibly. Perennial grasses are already regreening and seeds are germinating in the damp earth. Window boxes and tubs are once again full of bright flowers and the bunches of fresh parsley and dill at the grocer’s are the perkiest they have looked in months. Temperatures are in the high twenties.

Down in the harbour it is business as usual for the water taxis and excursion boats as Symi’s many late season visitors make the most of the improved weather to resume enjoying their holidays. Many regular visitors have commented that it is the first time they have ever experienced rain on Symi, despite visiting the island at more or less the same time every year, which all goes to show just how unusual sustained rain in September is on Symi. The next weather system is forecast to pass to the north of us, as is normal for this time of the year, and it may be a good month before we next see rain on the island.

The children are all back at school, laden with books for the new academic year. The students have also left the island to return to campuses in Rhodes and further afield. Symi has suddenly become very grown up and looking out of my office window the island seems quite sedate and very quiet.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

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Watch the Grass Grow

It is a cool cloudy day on Symi with temperatures in the mid twenties. Light showers in the early hours of the morning brought a pleasant freshness to the air and with it the scent of damp earth, newly wet after months of summer drought. Widespread showers and thunderstorms are forecast for the whole of Greece over the next 24 hours and the Hellenic National Meteorological Service has issued warnings on Greek television as some areas such as Attica are prone to flooding. In the light of the recent fatal floods in Istanbul, weather forecasters would rather err on the side of caution.

Showery days might be bad news for beach goers but they are good for the cafes, shops and tavernas – as yet another autumnal shower sweeps across Yialos, shooing damp day trippers before it, there is the cosy hum of conversation and clink of chinaware from Pachos and the so-called ‘Comfy Chairs’ mingling with the sound of flowing gutters and hissing rain. A week from now this island is going to be so green it will seem like a completely different place.

Meanwhile , over at the Symi Art Gallery preparations are being completed for the new exhibition opening tonight. For the full details, please see the adjoining posting.

Have a good weekend. I am going home to watch the grass grow.



Regards,

Adriana

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Paul Sanderson Exhibition - Symi Gallery

International Contemporary Art

SYMI GALLERY

Symi Island 85600 Greece T: (+30) 22460 72755 E: info@symigallery.com

www.symigallery.com

PAUL SANDERSON

Paul was born in Rugby, UK, in 1956. He studied Art at Reading and Leicester, and has been involved in Art education in north-west England since 1980.

A regular visitor to Greece, Paul now resides in Symi for part of the year.

ARTIST`S STATEMENT

Most of the paintings exhibited have been produced between 2003 and 2009, although several are much earlier. The materials used are quite traditional - oils on canvas, thin layers of colour applied in a series of glazes.

The work is Constructivist in style - an art movement that began in Russia after the First World War and led to the Bauhaus. The artists Gabo, Moholy-Nagy and Kudrjaschow have been particularly influential. Reference to architecture is evident in some paintings, while the grids are developed from the Golden Section - the universal law of proportion developed in classical Greece. The use of colour derives, in part, from a study of the stained glass at Chartres cathedral.

There are two elements at work in the paintings: a formal geometric structure, and an amorphous, intuitive use of colour and light, the aesthetic effects being the result of the colour being restrained by the structure. This can be further interpreted as the tension or balance between order and chaos.

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Late Summer Sun

It is a warm sunny September day on Symi. The ‘Proteus’ is just chugging out of Yialos as the ‘Symi II’ toots her arrival. The ‘Symi’ day trip boat is stern-to at the clock tower and the ‘Nikolaos’ is berthed outside the Katerinettes. A light breeze is riffling the water. There has been a major influx of visitors in recent days, a happy combination of first time and regular visitors to Symi, all enjoying the late summer sun. The water taxis and beaches are busy and the pavement cafes around the harbour bustling.


The Hellenic National Meteorological Service forecasting a slight drop in temperatures across the whole of Greece with the possibility of occasional thunder showers over the next couple of days. This is quite common in September on Symi and seldom results in more than distant lightning and a short sprinkling of raindrops. At present the midday temperatures on Symi are still in the high thirties, a lot warmer than is usual for this time of year, so a drop to 32 degrees centigrade would be quite welcome. With two big weddings, one Greek, the other Dutch, taking place at Agia Marina this Saturday there are a lot of people keeping a close eye on the weather at the moment. September and June are the two most popular times for weddings on Symi.

Have a good week.



Regards,

Adriana

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A Warm Sunny Day

It is a warm sunny day on Symi. The water taxis are out at the beaches. The clink of glasses and the murmur of Greek conversation rises up from Pachos Cafeneion. Down in the lane Dino is mending fishing nets. A few sleek power yachts of modest dimensions are berthed on the north side of Symi harbour. When it comes to glamorous mega yachts Symi has been very quiet this season with very few boats of note passing through this summer in comparison to previous years. Visiting celebrities have also been thin on the ground on Symi this year. Were they really all victims of Bernie Madoff or have the rich and famous found a new playground outside the Mediterranean?


Meanwhile here in Greece the sense of déjà vu continues as the prime minister has announced snap elections on 4 October, 2 years since the last snap elections after the last fires… The only difference is that the promises made then concerning improved fire-fighting equipment, compensation to victims and restoration and reforestation of damaged areas have not been kept and the electorate is very skeptical indeed. In a country where voting is compulsory elections are taken very seriously and discussions about politics are not idle chitchat. The scandals associated with the present New Democracy government will be hard to weather.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

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The First Day of Autumn

It is World Peace Day and the annual swim between Symi and Datca is under way. It seems like only yesterday that I was writing about the first one, back in 2003.  World Peace doesn’t seem to be breaking out on any global scale but it is good to see that our two small communities are continuing in their endeavours to spread harmony and understanding between historic foes. Coincidentally Mega, one of the Greek commercial television channels, is showing yet another repeat of the popular Turkish-Greek soap opera, ‘Frontiers of Love’ (‘Yabanci Damat’), some of which was shot here on Symi about 5 years ago.

As an Australian visitor observed to me this morning, today is the first day of spring in the southern hemisphere so that must make it the first day of autumn here in the north. Certainly the light is softer and the nights are cooler. On Symi the leaves have been falling for weeks, not in the spectacular blaze of a northern autumn but the slow rustle of sun-bleached foliage on parched earth as summer-deciduous trees conserve moisture by shedding superfluous growth. Here are some photographs taken on the walk to work this morning to give you an idea of the early morning light on Symi at this time of the year.

Have a good week.



Regards,

Adriana

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