Carnival in Greece

It is Carnival in Greece and a long weekend as Clean Monday is a public holiday in Greece. Despite gale force winds and a shipping ban a brightly coloured children’s merry-go-round has appeared on the waterfront, a jolly sight in the economic gloom. We just hope that it is only passing through for the holiday as Symi in the long term isn’t really plastic dinosaur country. The shops and kiosks are selling kites and pickles for Monday’s kite-flying picnics and masks, streamers and fancy dress costumes for Sunday’s revelleries.

The long range weather forecast remains unsettled with the possibility of showers over the weekend and some very strong winds, mostly from the south so temperatures remain mild for the time of the year, around 17 degrees centigrade at midday, dropping to around 10 degrees at night. Other parts of Greece are not faring so well though as they are experiencing strong northerly winds and snow.

The ferry schedules are still in disarray after the storms of Wednesday and Thursday and at the last minute today’s Symi-Rhodes-Kastellorizo-Rhodes-Symi run was replaced by Symi-Rhodes-Tilos-Nissyros-Kos with the result that a lot of people who thought they had a 10 hour shopping trip to Rhodes had to either get everything done in 2 hours or stay overnight and catch the big Pireaus ferry back which leaves Rhodes at 17.30 on Saturday afternoon. Although Monday is a public holiday at present ANES is showing a Rhodes-Tilos-Nissyros-Kos route. As usual, we advise anyone intending to travel at this time of the year to double check all arrangements – and always have a Plan B just in case the unexpected turns Plan A on its head.

As this office will be closed for the holiday, I will post my next blog on Tuesday.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana