Ochi Day Parade

As you are aware, Adriana is on holiday, so she has requested that I try and continue (nowhere near as informatively as she) to keep all her readers aware of Symi activities. As this is my first winter on Symi, I am interested in the daily aspects of Symi life and it was suggested that I should attend my first Ochi Day Parade. For those of you (and me) who don’t know what Ochi Day is, please accept my very brief description.

In 1940, the Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas was given an ultimatum, which basically stated free passage for Italian troops to occupy Greek territory. Obviously Metaxa's answer was 'Ochi' (No) hence the Ochi Day Parade.

The parade day started badly: due to a heavy downpour of rain, the smaller children had to take shelter in Chorio village school. Once the sun eventually appeared, the children were assembled outside and with their national flags and banners unfurled proceeded to march down the Kali Strata to join the rest of the parade participants in Yialos.

The mayor of Symi and other dignitaries witnessed the march past of the young people in the parade who looked resplendent in their uniforms of white and navy blue, totally in contrast to the soldiers in their olive green uniforms.

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A Gloriously Sunny Day in Rhodes

It is that time of the year when many of us who live permanently on Symi and work in the tourist season take our own holidays or head off the visit our families abroad. Late October is also the time when many foreign property owners shut up their houses on Symi for the winter and return to the world of central heating, wall to wall carpets and double glazing for the cold months. Symi’s architecture is delightful but even Greece has winter and a certain amount of stoicism is required to live in unheated houses with stone floors and nineteenth century amenities when the cold wet Mediterranean winter sets in. With the uncertainties of this year’s ferry schedule the exodus started early and both the Hermes and the Plaza hotels in Rhodes are doing well as more people than usual are obliged to spend one or two nights in Rhodes while in transit.

While many visitors to Symi arrive in Rhodes on direct charter flights from their nearest international airport, anyone travelling outside of the main Greek tourist season will of necessity have to fly scheduled. This usually means travelling via Athens. This is not as bad as it sounds, particularly if you are flying with Aegean Airways as you can then book your luggage right through to Rhodes and not have to worry about chasing suitcases en route. With the on-off-on-off merger plans between Aegean and Olympic there has been a lot of streamlining of the schedules so while there are fewer daily flights there is no longer the uneconomic nonsense of two half full planes taking off within 5 minutes of each other. The Airbus A321 on which I flew from Rhodes yesterday was full and, as there was a stretcher case on board, the same plane was also used for the Athens-Heathrow trip which was also full. Although we all had to disembark in Athens and then go through security again as though it was a different plane, the process went very smoothly and even with passengers only able to embark through the front entrance the flight left on time. We were actually early reaching Heathrow and spent 20 minutes circling before landing. Terminal 1 seems to be a bit quicker to get through than the old Terminal 2 and my driver was amazed that I was out in 35 minutes from landing.

After a gloriously sunny day in Rhodes on Monday the area of low pressure over Italy finally reached the Dodecanese in the early hours of Tuesday morning and my 5 a.m taxi trip to Rhodes airport was in drizzle. It was raining in Athens and also in Heathrow and it is still raining in Bournemouth as I write this so it seems to wet from one of Europe to the other. While wellington boots are too heavy to travel with, my lightweight Birkies from the Best shop on Symi are just the thing to pack for wet weather footwear. If you have a pair for gardening and are thinking of visiting Symi in the winter, they are just the job. As I think I have mentioned before, storm water drainage in our corner of the Mediterranean is inadequate at best and does not take into account the often torrential nature of the winter rains. This link gives a good idea of what happens on Symi in a downpour.

Ferries permitting I should be back on Symi on 10 November. In the meantime James Collins will keep you up to date with his blog on www.symidream.com/wp and for a window on the day’s weather on Symi log onto our webcam. For more information about travelling to Symi please read Andy’s travel blog on our Symi Visitor Accommodation website. You can also find us on Facebook.


Regards,
Adriana

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Living off the Land

It is a bright sunny day on Symi. Only a few ragged clouds linger and the Poseidon’s last round the island trip of the year should be a good one, even if the breeze is a bit on the chilly side. The long range forecast is clear and mild with predominantly northerly winds so it will be quite cool in the shade and in the evenings with heavy dew. Symi received about 65 mm of rain over a period of about 10 days so the summer drought has well and truly broken. Little whiskers of green grass are appearing along the verges and on the terraces and the first lupin seeds are punching their way through the clay. In the evenings ghostly figures armed with torches and plastic bags flit across the moonlit hillsides, gathering snails. The season for living off the land has begun.

The first ferns reappearing after the rain.

Down in the harbour there are not many people about. With few visitors staying on the island and very limited numbers of day trippers coming over from Rhodes the island is slowing down. The significant drop off in the number of boats serving the island has also had an impact on late season tourism. The Proteus is no longer running because it failed to have its government subsidy renewed and without financial assistance ANES cannot afford to run the boat. The Symi II is doing scheduled runs at weekends which appear on the website, as do the trips over the Panormitis festival period. The Symi II has been over a couple of times this week doing excursions from Rhodes but as these are not scheduled trips and are dependent on there being enough people to justify the journey this cannot be counted upon as a means of getting on and off the island. Dodecanese Seaways have put up their schedule as far as 15 November but at time of writing there is still a lot of uncertainty concerning the island’s ferry connections for this winter.

I shall be away on leave until 10 November but will endeavour to post a blog from Rhodes on Monday. There may, however, be a guest appearance or two so don’t go away.



Regards,

Adriana



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Toyland

It is a damp grey day on Symi. It is also quite noisy as all the workers are in the coffee shops, discussing local politics and waiting for the weather to improve. With luck this will be around Friday, when the present tangle of wet and stormy weather that is slowly revolving through the central Mediterranean finally passes over Greece and Turkey.

The following inspiring item appeared on http://www.ekathimerini.com/ today.

Weather warning

Authorities tell people to watch out for heavy rain, high winds

The National Meteorological Service and the Civil Protection Authority warned last night that many parts of Greece were set to experience heavy rainfall today, which is set to continue until tomorrow. The rain is expected to be accompanied by strong winds, which are expected to reach gale force in the Aegean today. Tomorrow, western Greece, the Ionian islands, Crete and the Dodecanese islands are likely to bear the brunt of the bad weather.

Colour Swatches - the restoration of this mansion on the Kali Strata is progressing rapidly,

 despite the weather.

Spotted in a Chorio pergola at the weekend.

While the island’s cats are seeking out the high ground and the workers are hanging about in the coffee shops, what is probably the last cruise ship of the season passed through Symi yesterday. This photograph was taken from the hairpin bend in the motor road that connects Yialos and Chorio and gives an idea of how these ships dwarf Yialos and its building. Symi really is like toyland.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

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Fallen Leaves and Summer's Dust

Profiti Ilias on Symi, lost in the mist

The rainy season has rolled into Symi with thick clouds wrapped low around the Vigla and increasingly heavy showers alternating with periods of light drizzle. We were awakened by a heavy downpour at about half past five this morning. With a tin roof no raindrop passes unnoticed and the cats run about madly, wondering where the noise is coming from. Kittens born this summer have never experienced rain before.

Enjoying some autumn sunshine before the rains came.

As a succession of weather fronts is moving across the Mediterranean this unsettled and stormy weather is expected to continue until well into next week. While northern and central Greece are experiencing quite chilly conditions it is still comparatively mild here on Symi with midday temperatures in the mid twenties. The warm wet conditions mean that it is exceptionally humid and we are all still in lightweight summer clothes, despite the occasional deluge. Dino, the chandler in the lane by the entrance to Symi Visitor Accommodation has added assorted wellington boots to his collection of seasonal agricultural implements. As the existence of the rainy season is largely ignored in this part of the world, until the rains actually come of course, there is not much in the way of storm water drainage and the roads and lanes quickly become torrents of water, hence the need for gumboots. The Kali Strata is often quite spectacular in heavy rain, particularly in the upper reaches near the Symi Dream shop. Walking down the Kali Strata the last two mornings has been quite a slippery business – fallen leaves and summer’s dust make the wet stones quite slick. It will take quite a lot more rain to flush the steps completely clean.

This little chapel has finally received a coat of paint after years of bare plaster. 

 Note the squalls rippling across Pedi Bay in the background.

A souvenir of summer twirling in the autumn wind.

According to ANES when I spoke to them this morning the Proteus car ferry will not be running after today and with effect from this weekend the Symi II will only be doing excursions on Saturdays and Sundays until the end of the month and then goes out of service apart from a few days over the Panormitis Festival. As the Dodecanese Seaways catamarans are also running a considerably reduced ferry schedule with effect from this weekend late season visitors to Symi will be having a difficult time getting to and from the island and Olympic Holidays is having to reschedule its Wednesday departures to Tuesday. At this stage, unless something miraculous happens, there is no Wednesday morning connection from Symi to Rhodes for the rest of October. The ANEK boat, the Ierapetra, does come through Symi in the late afternoon so it is only of help to those with Wednesday evening flights to catch.

Have a good weekend. I am going home to help plant potatoes.

Regards,
Adriana

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Coming to a Close

Fragments of stencil work on a ruin in Chorio.

A water taxi being packed up for the winter.

Not many yachts in the anchorage in Pedi.

That red scar isn't fall out from the Hungarian disaster - it is the perimeter of Symi's football field.

It is a clear sparkling autumn day on Symi. There were a few drops of rain during the night and a few ragged streaks of cloud are hanging about but the torrential rain and thunderstorms that have affected other parts of Greece have given Symi a miss. The forecast remains unsettled for the rest of the week and as successive waves of autumnal weather sweep across the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Syria Symi may well experience some wet and weather this week. Although Symi has not received any proper rain many of the autumn plants are already in evidence. Silvery squills are waving their flowers on the rocky hillsides and the first daintily painted cyclamen leaves are poking through the stones in the shady places.

Down in the harbour preparations are under way for the great winter sleep. The water taxi skippers are packing up, wrapping chairs in black plastic to protect them from the elements and preparing to lift their boats out of the water at the end of the month. Umbrellas and sunshades are being packed away and winter plastic awnings fitted. Tavernas and cafes are packing away excess chairs and tables and shortening their menus to suit the diminished number of people and the changes in the weather. The season seems to be coming to a close earlier than usual this year, in part due to the poor ferry schedules for the second half of October. We hope that the shipping companies manage to come up with something because the lack of connections on certain days of the week during a period when there are still visitors coming to the island is not just detrimental to the island’s economy in the short term but is also not helpful to Symi’s overall image as a tourist destination. Symi is fast returning to being an adventure destination for back packers with flexible schedules who don’t mind an element of uncertainty in their travel arrangements. Fine for the footloose and fancy free but not much good for families looking for a half term break. As this is an election year and the mayor is on the committee of ANES this should be at the top of the agenda.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana

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Happy Days

The Symi excursion boat photographed earlier this week.

As you can see, when the side doors are open one can see right through the ship!



It is a windy day on Symi with a marked drop in temperature. It is only about 22 degrees on Symi today. According to Weather Underground Symi is going to experience some quite unsettled weather over the next few days with strong winds and possible thundershowers early next week. Certainly the cross wind in the harbour this morning was such that the Proteus docked at the clock tower instead of by the bus stop, en route from Tilos to Rhodes.

It might be cooler on Symi but the sky is still bright blue.

The palm tree outside our office window is laden with dates.

The change in the seasons is also marked in the shops. Dino, the chandler in the lane below our office, is now selling hoes and other agricultural implements in addition to fishing tackle and nautical bits and bobs. The kiosks have packed away their ice cream freezers. Fresh supplies of chocolate bars and instant soups are appearing on supermarket shelves. And the hawker who sells young poultry came in on the big boat on Wednesday night and is trundling up and down the road in Chorio, shouting ‘poulakia’ through his loud-hailer. There can’t be many places in the world where Christmas dinner starts by buying a baby turkey in October but this is one of them!

Looking across at the Kali Strata from the top of Mavrovouni. 

Yialos, Symi's famous amphitheatre harbour, is quite narrow.

As I have mentioned before, late season visitors to Symi are often old regulars. One such is Ernest Hazebroek who popped into the Symi Visitor Accommodation office this morning while passing through on a charter gulet. Ernest was one of the pioneers of tourism in Symi in the Seventies and Eighties and is the owner of the much talked about ruins on the Kali Strata. Many readers of this blog will remember happy days on singles holidays at Villa Papanicola with Small World and Mikros Kosmos. These days singles seem to book their holidays independently but many still come to Symi and book their accommodation through us.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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Slipping into Winter Mode

A private house up near the museum. 

The triple arch motif on the pediment is unique to this part of Chorio

where several houses in the same area have it.

Symi is slipping into winter mode. The sun may be shining but there is a nip in the air. Walking to work this morning I noticed that the early morning school run which, on Symi, often entails parents transporting children on motorbikes and scooters, was a well-wrapped affair with bundled progeny in Barbie pink anoraks and red windcheaters clinging to equally muffled drivers. Greek children are given huge amounts of homework to do in the afternoons and their satchels and bookbags are enormous. Small children in the primary school stagger along under the weight of these things and often have heavily laden parents chaperoning them to the school door, not because it isn’t safe for young children to walk to school by themselves here but simply to carry the kilos of books that have to be lugged to and fro.

A hibiscus grows out of an old stone wall in Chorio.

Down in Yialos there is not much activity around the taxi boats. The big Symi excursion boat has arrived from Rhodes and is moored stern-to at the clock tower. The crew have lowered the two side ramps into the vehicle hold so one can see right through the vessel and are sitting comfortably on their deck chairs, fishing. While October might be a busy month for walkers, for the Symiots it is time to wind down and the atmosphere is much more laid back than it is in August. It is not just the crews of the day excursion boats who have gone fishing. Quite a few businesses on the island are now working shorter hours and are laying off staff. Some tourist shops have already packed up for the year and won’t reopen until April or May. It is the time for end of season bargains as shopkeepers often find it easier to sell off their stock cheap rather than have it suffer the damp of a Symi winter in storage.

Shadows and Bougainvilleas

A neighbour eyeing what is left of my geraniums.

 

The Greek truckers’ stoppage has ended, or at least an agreement of sorts has been reached, so the car ferries are once again full of freight and the supermarkets are filling up once more. Here on Symi we didn’t notice too much of a problem but big chains such as Lidl and Marks and Spencers on Rhodes had empty shelves and there were complaints from Symiots who had gone over to Rhodes specifically to go shopping only to find the cupboards bare. If anyone can tell me what the difference is between a strike and a stoppage I would be happy to hear from you :-)

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana

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Yesterday's Clouds

Pedi Bay at 7 a.m

It is a bright shiny day on Symi. Yesterday’s clouds have blown away, leaving the air clear and sparkling. The distance hills of the Turkish coast have shaken off the haze of summer and last night the lights on the opposite shore were quite clear. On a clear autumn day one can see Tilos, Nissyros, Halki, Rhodes and, sometimes, as far as Kos if one is energetic enough to climb the Vigla or Kokkimides – or drive up the hair pin bends of the Panormitis road. The big wind farm on the isthmus at Datca whirls away on the horizon. With no industry nearby and little traffic the air in our corner of the Mediterranean is very clean and the worst source of emissions is probably Symi power station, chugging away on the Pedi road.

Skilful work without the assistance of tugs and pilots. 

Greek mariners are among the most competent in the world.

The sunny side.

While the lanes of upper Chorio are very quiet, down in the harbour it is quite busy. Cruise ships from Cyprus, lots of day trippers from Rhodes, many of them Eastern European, walkers, island-hoppers, regular Symi visitors and some new faces from all parts of the world – at this time of the year Symi is host to a wide selection of guests. It is also the sailing season – cruising yachts and flotilla sailors rather than mega yachts and glitterati. As the summer cruising season comes to an end many yachts wait in border islands such as Symi for their berths in Turkish marinas to become available for the winter.

Boarding the 10 a.m water taxis to the beaches. 

 Note that the south-side of the harbour in the background is actually still in shadow.

The ferry schedules for October are out in piecemeal fashion and at the moment it looks as though the second half of the month is going to be quite badly served. Please check carefully before travelling – just because something is scheduled to run at a particular time on a particular day of the week does not necessarily mean that it will automatically do likewise the week after! Island life is reverting to the adventure it was 15 years ago as demand drops to pre millennium levels. Here are some pictures that I have taken over the last two days to give you an idea of what Symi is like at the end of September and beginning of October.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

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