Symi Christmas Decorations

After a showery Saturday and sunny Sunday, it is a cool calm Monday on the island of Symi with only a light breeze riffling the water of the harbour. High wind-blown streaks of cloud hint at the strong winds to come later this week as Greece prepares for another bout of wintery weather. The Ionian is already being buffeted by the same low pressure system that has brought winter to the Alps, Italy, Croatia and Albania. Gales, heavy rain and thunderstorms are forecast for the whole of Greece from Tuesday night onwards until well into the weekend. There will be a slight drop in temperatures in southern Greece so Symi will remain fairly mild but areas to the north are preparing for the cold.

Here on Symi the municipality is taking advantage of this last dry spell to work on the official Symi Christmas decorations and small artificial trees are being set up along the promenade in front of Pachos in Yialos. The photographs show a group of trees waiting to be placed and workmen busy attaching one to the pavement. For an idea of what these look like at night when the lights are on, please log onto our webcam. Symi’s pretty neo-classical architecture turns into Toyland over Christmas as the island’s seasonal decorations are as small in scale as the houses themselves. As most houses are only one or two narrow storeys and have very limited internal space and few if any gardens, householders like to decorate the balconies, terraces, external stairways and pediments of the houses themselves rather than try to squeeze trees etcetera into the salon. All over Yialos, Chorio and Pedi dainty doves, boats, angels and other traditional motifs shine among the shuttered houses. Some people even go to the extent of outlining the architectural details of the house in flashing light tubes, not always with the results intended!

Have a good week. I am off to clear my gutters before the rain starts.

Regards,

Adriana

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Dew in the Sun

It is another still bright day on Symi. The sea is a shimmering sheet of pastel reflections, fractured by the wakes of puttering fishing boats. The Turkish coast has vanished in the mist and the rocks on the upper slopes of the Vigla gleam with dew in the sun. Municipal workers are making steady progress with Symi’s Christmas decorations and every night brings more lights. Householders are lagging behind a bit but then Greek Christmas is not the orgy of conspicuous consumption that it is in the West and I noticed in Rhodes on Wednesday that very few shops have received their Christmas stock yet. Even German discount chain, Lidl, was only just packing out the first baubles and tinsel amongst the baskets of cheap thermal underwear and back-to-school stationery offers. On a related retail note, regular British visitors who have occasionally been prevailed upon to bring various root vegetables to Symi in their luggage may be relieved to hear that Sotiris’ supermarket in Chorio now stocks parsnips on a regular basis.

The long spell of fine weather is expected to break this weekend with the possibility of thunder showers throughout Greece, starting from Saturday evening. Unsettled weather is forecast for most of next week and Greek winter in various forms may well be resuming from where it left off in mid November.

Walking down the Kali Strata this morning, I noticed that the ruined mansion house just next door to the old Glafkos Hotel has been tidied up. For many years it was an eye-catcher for photographers as a whole wall had blown over in a gale with the stones all still firmly attached to each other, resting gently in a shady garden of conifers and citrus. This surreal sheet of stone wall has now been dismantled and the stones neatly stacked, presumably for use when the house is rebuilt. A pallet of cement has arrived and is bundled under plastic sheeting against dew which would suggest that restoration will be commencing sooner rather than later.

In this winter sunshine picture you can see The Gate House (the white house at the top of the houses on the cliff, next to the ochre one).  The roof tops of Iapetos Village Hotel and the tall conifers in the grounds of St John's church are in the foreground.

Have a good weekend.
Regards,

Adriana

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On the Sunny Side

The weather on Symi remains unseasonably mild. Indeed not just Greece but the whole of the Mediterranean is enjoying some late season sunshine as a large area of high pressure dominates the weather over the area. After the deluges and stormy weather that marked the end of October and first half of November this is a welcome lull before winter resumes. High humidity means low cloud, mist and heavy dewfall. The Kali Strata, the historic flight of 400 or so steps that connections the old upper village, Chorio with the harbour, Yialos, is covered with a fine bloom of bright green moss and the stones are slick in the early morning. Snails glide slowly about their business and much of the new season’s growth looks decidedly nibbled around the edges.

With the low angle of the sun and mountainous terrain many north facing properties are now in shadow for most, if not all, of the day and it is the cafes on the sunny south-facing side of the harbour that are busiest at this time of the year. In the accompanying photos of the view from my office window taken at 10.30 this morning you can see this climatic difference between one side of the harbour and the other quite clearly.

The new Symi undercover sports facility in Chorio is making great progress, as you can see from this photo. That is the Taxiarchis hotel just visible, peeping out, at the right. I am sure they will be glad when the disruption of the building work is over.

Regards,
Adriana

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Unexpected Places

It is a bright blue and white day on Symi. Small wooden fishing boats are puttering out across the bay, flags fluttering in the breeze. Around at Harani there is much scrubbing, scraping and rubbing going on as the water taxis and excursion boats have their bottoms cleaned of a summer’s worth of barnacles. Smaller boats are being hauled out on the customs slipway and it is that time of the year when café tables and chairs give way to boats on crates and cradles along the waterfront and tucked in lanes and unexpected places, often quite remote from the sea.

Temperatures are pleasantly mild with midday peaks in the mid twenties and evenings no lower than 15 degrees centigrade at the moment. The Pedi valley is a luminous patchwork of fresh green grass and the chocolate brown of newly ploughed fields. Little spires of bonfire smoke scent the air as farmers burn kermes oak prunings and clear the land for winter planting. Lupins, cyclamens and the ubiquitous Cape sorrel (Bermuda buttercups) are the most easily identifiable of the wild flowers on the terraces and stony places. On a clear Symi winter’s day one really does feel as though one can see forever.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

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Working Round the Clock

The weather on Symi remains clear and dry and there is an air of gritty determination on the island’s building sites as labourers toil on to catch up for days missed during the recent rains. Up in Chorio they have been working round the clock pouring concrete to complete the next phase on the undercover sports stadium behind the Taxiarchis Hotel. This should reach roof height in the next week or so if the weather remains fair.

Down in Pedi on Sunday it was all hands on deck to get the surfacing done over the main section of quay for the new marina. As you can see in the photographs the building supply ship came alongside the new quay and was able to dump gravel directly where the bulldozer could shovel it into position. The small utilities block is nearly completed and service pipes have been laid for water and electricity along the outer quay. The enclosed area is narrower than originally intended so there will not be room for yachts to come alongside on the inside of the quay. Yachts will have to moor stern to on the exposed outer side as they do in Yialos. It will however be considerably quieter as unlike Yialos yachtsmen will not have waterfront bars and other night time disturbances to contend with. As you can see from the photographs, the local small fishing boats are already in place along the inner shore line. At the moment the road around that side of Pedi is closed to vehicle traffic as part of it has been dug up in the course of the present works. The rest of Pedi is very quiet indeed.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

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Symi is Sparkling

After two days of alternating rain and rainbows, thunderstorms and rolling clouds, not to mention the odd passing waterspout, the wind has turned to the north and Symi is sparkling in a chill wintry breeze. Windy conditions are expected to prevail over Greece for the next for days and Symi will enjoy some dry, if chilly, weather. Temperatures will remain below 20 degrees over the weekend but may well be warmer in sheltered sunny areas.

Now that the Panormitis Festival is over, the ferries are now running on winter schedules. We remind late season visitors that these are subject to change and it is always advisable to allow some flexibility when travelling during the winter months. This year's visitors to the Panormitis Festival had a fairly bumpy ride home to Rhodes.  These photographs were taken from the vehicle deck of the Symi II on Sunday 8 November 2009 and gives some idea of what sea conditions can be like at this time of the year, so remember to pack the Quells! 

The Symi Gallery is opening its new exhibition in the cosy environs of the Two A’s Bar (ex Jean and Tonic) in Chorio tonight at 7.30 p.m. This will be an exhibition of print work in various media, featuring the work of Ian Hamilton Findlay, who was a Turner Prize nominee in 1985, as well as Stuart Brisley, widely considered the godfather of performance art in the UK, as well as prints by previous exhibitors Jytte Loehr, Paul Sanderson and Ian Haycox. There will also be contributions from artists from Canada, Scotland and England. So, if you are on Symi tonight, wrap up warmly and come along for a glass of wine and what promises to be a varied and interesting exhibition. The exhibition will continue for a month so if you can’t make it this evening, there will be plenty of opportunities.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

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Before the Next Rain

In the weeks I have been away Symi has made the transition from summer dust bowl to winter green. Good rains and mild temperatures have covered the island with a bright carpet of grass, moss and indigenous flora. The daintily painted leaves of the wild cyclamens turn barren stone terraces and cliffs into elegant gardens. In the vegetables gardens the last peppers and aubergines are ripening and chilli bushes make a final show before the falling temperatures send the plants into winter dormancy.

Symi has had some stormy weather but the rain held off long enough for the Panormitis Festival, see Out and About. The long range forecast shows lots more rain and thunder storms to come over the next few days, followed by some very heavy northerly winds at the weekend, bringing a sharp drop in temperatures for the whole of Greece. Down here in the south we will still be enjoying 12- 15 degrees centigrade but in the northern parts of Greece the thermometer will drop into single figures and the first night frosts have already been experienced.

Now that the Panormitis festival is over and the last visitors have left Symi is a very quiet island indeed. With most of the island’s male working population out on fishing boats, laboring on building sites or engaged in agricultural pursuits that need to be done before the next rain, Yialos is deserted. Coming down the Kali Strata this morning there was a bonfire burning in the grounds of one of the ruins as workmen prepare a site. Up in Chorio, Symi’s womenfolk are making the most of the dry spell to get bedding aired and washing dry before the next round of wet weather and every balcony is festooned. Not many Symi houses have space for tumble driers and indoor airers so every sunny day in the winter is used to best advantage. I am going home now to attend to a few agricultural and domestic chores myself before the rain comes. The potatoes were planted in my absence but there is still a lot to be done while temperatures are still mild enough for seeds to germinate.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

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