Very Greek

It is a cloudy day and we woke up to growling thunder and distant lightning. So far the showers have skirted Symi and are hanging about over the Turkish coast. At the moment it looks as though Symi will be set fair for the Greek Easter long weekend. The bells have been tolling intermittently since last night as the solemn order of service for Big Week has commenced. Many of the island women wear black for the week before Easter, even if they are not widows, and this is a period of great solemnity. It is also a period of great activity as there is so much to be done in preparation for the Easter Sunday feast while at the same time attending all the appropriate church services. Many of the Symiot men are busy with the slaughtering of the hundreds of lambs and kids that make up the mainstay of the feast and the sound of bleating as sheep are transported by the truckload, combined with the tolling of the bells, is very much a soundtrack for the island at this time of the year. On a more cheerful note, the Easter chocolate has finally arrived and chocolate praline eggs, big chocolate eggs wrapped in foil printed with all the popular Greek football clubs and chocolate hens decorated with sugar flowers are all available at the supermarkets in Chorio. For those wishing to make a statement, chocolate Father Christmases are also for sale at selected outlets in Chorio. Not a Hot Cross Bun to be seen but there are plenty of traditional Greek Easter cookies to be found in the bakeries. The lanes of Chorio are wonderfully fragrant with mastic, vanilla and aniseed.

Down in the harbour preparations for the first tourists continue. Pickup trucks laden with tottering piles of café chairs and pot plants trundle round the harbour and the dress code at Pachos is definitely paint-spattered work clothes. It will be several weeks yet before the water taxis, beach tavernas and excursion boats come into operation as these don’t start until May but the harbour cafes and tavernas are opening up for Easter trade.

Today’s photographs were taken while waiting for the Symi II to come in on Saturday afternoon and show octopi hanging out to dry in a safe outside Mr Tasty’s taverna. A very Greek usage of a road sign.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

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A Breezy Spring Day

It is a breezy spring day on Symi. Birds are chirruping in the lane outside the Symi Visitor Accommodation office and municipal workers are busy hosing down the waterfront with a big seawater pump. A fisherman is whacking an octopus against the quay to tenderize it. With longer days, bright mornings and sunny weather everyone seems to be getting up and about earlier and for once we aren’t anticipating the leap to European Summer Time on Sunday with reluctance. Some years the clocks change but the weather remains wet, grey and gloomy whereas this year apart from the possibility of a passing mud shower on Sunday spring is running well ahead of schedule. It is now a month since the last proper rain on Symi and March has been unusually dry.

The cable-laying crew got as far as the Aliki Hotel, filled their trench with sand, loaded their gear onto the Ierapetra car ferry on Saturday and disappeared. Looks like Symi will have to wait a while longer for its fibre optic cables and high speed internet access. The Nimborio road is being concreted, not tarred as originally stated. As the concrete is being poured in sections, during which, of course, the road is closed, and each section has to harden for two days before it can take traffic, vehicle access to Nimborio is effectively closed for the next week or so. The contractors say they don’t know how long it will take as it depends on all sorts of variables. In the hour I was out there on Wednesday afternoon their bulldozer broke down and closed the road so this could take a while… Walkers can get across via the mountain path across Drakounta and many Nimborio residents are putting their boats in the water rather earlier than usual.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

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Poppies and Peas

Symi is shining in the spring sun. Blue skies, calm seas and busy people cleaning, scrubbing, painting and varnishing. The fishing boats in the harbour are relaying their moorings to make space for visiting yachts and ferries. The road gang is hard at work, widening and grading the road to Nimborio. The whitewashing of the Kali Strata steps is nearly done. With all this activity down in the harbour the bakeries sold out of cheese and spinach pies much earlier than usual today. The gyros bars are switching to their Big Week menus of seafood and taramasalata. Big Week, for those unfamiliar with the term, is the week running up to Easter, when even those who don’t normally observe the Lenten fast often cut out meat and anything containing blood. The butchers in the harbour and Chorio have signs up advising Symiots to place their orders NOW for Easter lambs, kids and other Easter specialities.

Houses are being aired and every Symi balcony boasts its fair share of rugs, carpets, quilts and blankets. A well known harbour hound actually took his first paddle of the year this morning but most of the island’s human inhabitants are leaving swimming until the sea has warmed up a bit more. After months of abnormally high tides and flooded shoreline we now have the opposite and visiting Pedi yesterday some of the boats were actually aground. A high pressure system over the Eastern Mediterranean combined with the equinoctial spring low is responsible for this sudden drop in sea levels. The countryside is lush with spring flowers and the bees are having a wonderful time in the poppies that have opened in my pea fields.

Thursday 25 March is the Feast of the Annunciation and also the commemoration of the start of the Greek War of Independence. It is a public and religious holiday in Greece and even those who are striking may well put their placards down for the day and wave flags instead as parades take place in every town and village in Greece.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

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Convivial Work

It is a clear sunny spring day on Symi. Fields of poppies are nodding in the cold northerly breeze and we are all wrapped up against the chill but if one can find a spot out of the wind it is very pleasant indeed. As the scented cyclamens fade away in the drought, bright billows of yellow and white daisies are taking their place and spires of deep blue lupins rise above the greenery. The workmen busy tiling the roof of the new sports stadium up in Chorio are still in anoraks and woolly hats despite the bright sunshine and pause at frequent intervals to warm numb fingers and gaze out over the Pedi valley.

Seasonal preparations are well under way in the harbour and there is a whiff of fresh paint on the air. It may be cold but at least it is dry and everyone can get on with painting, varnishing and other outside maintenance – convivial work as people stop to admire each other’s handiwork and exchange gossip and cigarettes. On Wednesday the Dodecanese Seaways catamaran brought a few day trippers over from Rhodes and I saw at least one optimistic tourist shop displaying flimsy kaftans and drifty sundresses to potential customers more interested in scarves and mittens.

The long range forecast remains clear and dry with no prospects of rain on the horizon. Temperatures will remain below seasonal averages and the northerly wind will persist.

The road around Harani and on to Nimborio is closed at the moment. Work has commenced on widening the Nimborio road and at the same time the channel is being dug round the harbour for the new fibre-optic cables for OTE, the telephone company. Apparently the waterfront road around Yialos will be closed to cars all day on Sunday while this is done and only pedestrians, bicycles and motorbikes will be able to get through. Other news is that Dodecanese Seaways will be running a regular service out of Symi in April.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

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Delicious Spring Weather

After a glorious weekend of delicious spring weather a brisk north wind whisked in during the night, sending temperatures plummeting around Greece. Chilly winds are forecast for the rest of the week and temperatures on Symi will be around 18-20 degrees centigrade at midday, falling to about 10 degrees centigrade at night. Not quite time to pack away the duvets and sweaters just yet.

With the first visitors expected for Easter at the end of this month and the Symi II commencing day trips to Panormitis and Yialos with effect from tomorrow there is a sudden flurry of activity in the harbour. The owners of tourist shops are dusting, polishing and painting with gusto. It may be windy but the air is clean at the moment and visibility is good. The sandstorms of last week have been blown back to Cairo and the sky is blue instead of pink.

Easter stock is appearing in the shops at last – big wheels of cheese, sacks of flour and packets of ammonia and yeast for Easter baking, sachets of red, green, yellow and blue dye for colouring eggs, tall processional candles decorated with sprays of flowers and small toys – and amongst it all, a few imported chocolate rabbits. More chocolate may appear in the shops later but it is not a big feature of Greek Easter and in these times of austerity measures and the like, it is traditional delicacies that are at the forefront. The run up to Easter is a culinary marathon for the housewives of Symi as traditional koulouria (biscuits) and cheese pies are prepared by the hundred. Once the cake tins are full it is time to start on the Easter feast preparations. This being a hands-on sort of place, many an unsuspecting lamb is munching his last in the family allotment and will soon fulfill his function in life on a slow turning spit on 4 April.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

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An Invitation to a Veritable Banquet

It is the season for the annual battle between sandstorms and whitewash as the Greeks scrub and paint in anticipation of Easter and nature repeatedly covers the country in a fine crust of Saharan dust. For those who really couldn’t be bothered about gleaming paintwork and dazzling white walls, spring is an invitation to a veritable banquet of lush greenery as today’s photos show. Only the ancient blue car, which has been home to poultry, rabbits and pigs at various times in its history since it ceased to be roadworthy gives a clue to regular visitors that this is actually on the Pedi road and from June to October is just a dusty bit of hillside with an old blue car abandoned in it.

Higher up, at the top of the Pedi Valley, the tiles have arrived for the new undercover sports stadium and the workmen are wrestling with large sheets of rock wool insulation. Down in Yialos, the harbour, it is surprisingly quiet. The Asian hawker with his station wagon full of cheap Chinese ghetto blasters and plastic novelties has drifted on to a different island, taking his techno-pop and talking dolls with him. A huddle of heavy vehicles waits at the clock tower in anticipation of tomorrow’s Pireaus car ferry. Locals hang about in Pachos cafeneion, drinking thick black coffee and discussing the economy, or lack thereof. With the fine pall of dust still hanging in the air there is little point in washing taverna tables or painting shutters. The Proteus will be in from Rhodes in a couple of hours and then Yialos will be galvanized into action as everyone rushes to unload stock and collect ordered items but for now Yialos is quiet and biding its time.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

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Fruit and Flowers

Sunday was calm and cloudy and conditions were perfect for the Dodecanese Day Parade. It was very much the calm before the storm as the weather deteriorated in the late afternoon and by early this morning Symi was being lashed by a full blown Force 10 south-easterly wind which is showing no signs of abating. Rhodes airport is closed due to gusts of 82 kilometres per hour and all passenger vessels have been stopped in the Aegean.  At the moment many are sheltering at anchor in the lee of Rhodes and other islands, unable to dock with safety.

We took advantage of the still conditions on Sunday morning to make sure our boat was well secured against the forthcoming blow. Sitting out in the middle of Pedi bay in the dinghy I realized to what extent that view would have been THE view of Symi in the days before the neoclassical buildings of the late nineteen century were built in Yialos. The castro, or the remnants thereof, perched on top of its acropolis and the houses huddled round for safety. The fertile fields and orchards of the Pedi valley rolling down to the sea. The Symiots with their pirate steps leading to look out points on the rooftops of Chorio would have had plenty of warning of the arrival of trouble.

Wild weather aside, when it is good it is very very good on Symi at this time of the year. Bees droning in the lavender, citrus trees laden with fruit and flowers - and drifts of dainty pink cyclamens continue to perfume the air in every patch of shade.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

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Yellow Freesias

Spring is struggling to put in an appearance on Symi this week as strong winds alternate with grey calms and the temperatures are still fighting to rise above 20 degrees. Muddy patters of rain turn cars from white to dusty pink and the horizon has disappeared in the humid haze that southerly winds always bring to this part of Greece in March and April. Regular Symi Visitor Accommodation webcam viewers will have noticed the rise and fall of the sea level in Symi harbour as cars splash through the floods outside Pachos whenever the barometer drops.

As the new tourist season approaches the ferry service is improving and the Proteus comes back into service today in addition to the Symi II. Dodecanese Seaways has slotted in another trip to Symi midweek so it is now possible for visitors to Rhodes to come over to Symi for the day on a Wednesday in March. The ferry schedules for April, however, still have not been announced and at present the ANES schedule only covers the Easter long weekend.

Down in Pedi work has ceased on the marina, due to the inevitable cash flow problems caused by the economic crisis. Fortunately the work men tidied up before they left so that side of Pedi is actually in better shape than this time last year and the concrete road along the front towards Agia Marina is no longer awkward to navigate. Today’s photograph shows Alla and George Hadzipetros’ delightful cottage garden just beyond the Pedi Katoi and Pedi Anoi. The massed yellow freesias smell wonderful.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

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Fallen Almond Blossom

It is a calm grey day on Symi with high cloud and a hazy horizon. The water level in the harbour has finally dropped after a second weekend of floods caused by abnormal spring tides combined with barometric lows. Vehicles from the island of Symi are readily identifiable by the mechanics and car washes on Rhodes as they are famously rusty underneath from driving through salt water in Yialos, Pedi and Panormitis in the winter. The Lunar Park packed up and departed on the big boat on Saturday afternoon so the town square in Yialos is once again providing parking above the high tide level. Shop and property owners are getting fed up by the constant flooding this winter as ground floor sea level properties are very damp with salt water seeping up through the flagstones and foundations – a reminder of why the quayside in Yialos has been repeatedly widened and raised over the years, not to mention the building of the bridge at the head of the harbour and the exaggeratedly raised pavements around the waterfront.

We may be approaching the spring equinox but the long range forecast for this week is very unsettled with midday temperatures still hovering at 19 degrees centigrade and some strong winds on the agenda. Nights are mild with temperatures around 10 degrees centigrade and on windless evenings it is perfectly possible to sit outside. On a clear night the stars are astonishingly bright and at the moment we are enjoying a glorious full moon. Moonlight shining on the fallen almond blossom is the closest we are likely to get to snow on Symi this year.

The ANES ferry schedules up to 5 April are now available on line so Easter visitors to Symi can make some plans. The schedules for Dodecanese Seaways still only cover March with a service to Symi on Sundays only. Please remember that all ferry schedules are subject to the weather as safety is put ahead of customer convenience and it is not always possible for boats to dock in Rhodes in a strong easterly swell.

Regards,

Adriana

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