A Small Greek Island in the Dodecanese

Shadow play on Nimos as seen from the top of Chorio.

Early rain means fat olives.

The Blue Star Diagoras speeding past Pedi Bay, on her way round to Yialos.

An old chimney stack in the old part of Chorio.
 It has been repaired at some point with an enamel basin to prevent rain coming down the chimney.

Another bright sunny winter’s day on Symi, a small Greek island in the Dodecanese.  Temperatures remain in the teens, dropping to single figures at night with heavy dew falls.  There is a low pressure system working its way slowly across the Mediterranean, bring the possibility of clouds and thundershowers from tomorrow.  This year November has been colder and drier than usual.  On the mainland it is very much colder now and an interesting sign of the times is reports of an upsurge in the use of old fashioned wood burning stoves for heating, even in the apartment blocks in Athens.  It is easy to forget that Greece has a winter and for much of Greece the winters can be every bit as harsh as those experienced in Northern Europe and North America.  Snow falls in parts of Athens and Thessalonica every year and in the mountainous rural areas people really batten down.  Here on Symi, where central heating is very unusual and the old houses with their high ceilings are difficult to heat efficiently, woodstoves and fireplaces are quite common and in the evenings the scent of woodsmoke is on the air. It is not uncommon in old Symi houses to find a moussandra sleeping loft above the kitchen and possibly even a soufa, sleeping platform, in the kitchen itself, to make the most of warmth from the kitchen fireplace.  In my farmhouse I have a beautiful Vergina cast iron stove which I bought in Rhodes some years ago which has a good sized oven and is suitable for cooking as well and that is what we cook on and heat our home with from the end of October through to April.  

It is very quiet on Symi today as a lot of people have taken advantage of the day trip on the Proteus to Rhodes today. ANES is offering discounts for the two days in the week that it is possible to do a day trip from Symi to Rhodes and in these cash strapped times this is a good incentive.  While the festive season ferry schedule remains a mystery and there is still no word of when the Panagia Skiadeni will be running, at least Symi has boats for the next few weeks, goods are arriving on the island and people can get to Rhodes without the additional expense of hotel accommodation.

This will be my last Symi blog for a while as I am leaving on Sunday for Rhodes to catch a plane to South Africa on Tuesday and will only be back on Symi again in early February.  In the meantime James Collins will keep you up to date on www.symidream.wp and my team of IT-challenged volunteers will endeavour to post occasional photographs on Out and About J There is also our popular  Symi Visitor webcam and Chat Page.  You can also find Symi Visitor Accommodation on Facebook where Symi devotees share their favourite photographs of Symi and regular and new visitors can exchange information.

Wishing you all a happy festive season and ‘Kalo Chimona’

Regards,

Adriana

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An Air of Optimism

The weather remains unseasonably chilly on Symi for the time of year – it is not usually this cold until well into December – but the sun is shining so the sunny side of the harbour is a popular place to be if one has nothing much else to do. As Symi is so steep the days are very short now – it takes several hours for the sun to climb over the hills to shine down into Yialos and Pedi and it seems as though one has only just warmed up before it slips behind the Vigla again and that is another day done. We saw the first European Robin in our garden this morning and my damask roses which normally bloom in April and May have decided to give us a few deliciously scented blooms before winter sets in for good. The next spell of rainy weather is expected to reach Symi next week end, bringing with it a slight rise in temperatures as wet weather usually comes from the South in the Eastern Mediterranean, picking up some warmth from North Africa before it reaches us.

The ANES car ferry, the Proteus, made a jubilant return to Symi yesterday – hooters tooting triumphantly. Her schedule up to 31 December 2011 is now up on the ANES website and her crew are very happy to be back in business. Meanwhile there is still no word as to when the schedule for the eagerly anticipated Dodecanese Seaways ferry, Panagia Skiadeni will be released. In the meantime the selection of goods in the shops has been greatly improved by the twice weekly visits of the Diagoras Blue Star and there have been reports of parsnip sightings in the fridges at Sotiris’ supermarket in Chorio.

Something else that is sufficiently unseasonable to cause comment is Symi’s Christmas lights. In an unprecedented move, Symi municipality is actually putting them up early this year and we already have cheerful barber pole light tubes up the street lamps in Chorio and Yialos and the little ships and doves of peace are in place on the lamp posts in Yialos. Another municipal initiative that is currently underway is the completion of the crazy paving around the harbour which was started earlier in the summer before the season began. It is a wise move to get this done now, before the exceptionally high tides that flood the harbour during the winter storms begin. Both of these projects make use of materials and labour already to hand and bring an air of optimism to our little community without raising comments about extravagance and expense in these times of austerity.

 Have a good week.

 Regards,

Adriana

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A Typical November Day on Symi, Greece

 The dry dusty stones of summer have turned into hanging gardens of plants, both indigenous and imported.  On this slope near the bus stop in Yialos the bright red leaves of Virginia creeper share space with  self-seeded wild cyclamens.

The bulbs from which these cyclamens are growing are buried deep in the crevices of these volcanic rocks.  By the time I return from South Africa at the end of January they will be full of delicately scented 

pale pink blooms.

The Blue Star Diagoras is a welcome sight as she rounds Nimos and heads for Yialos.

Her reception committee - due to the weather and the shipping ban last weekend these trucks have been stranded on Symi for a week.

This Kali Strata mansion was restored recently but the small gate into the garden is still the original.

Wash day in Chorio.  Tumble driers are virtually unheard of on Symi - the houses are too small and electricity too expensive - instead the locals make use of free sunshine and the dry northerly wind.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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More Shipping News

Since I published my blog yesterday morning it has been announced that the Proteus will be providing a limited service between Symi and Rhodes for the period 20 Novermber to 24 December.  She will run on Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays so we still have a bottle-neck of boats at the weekend and little during the week but the Dodecanese Seaways Panagia Skiadeni has been blessed and should be releasing her timetable soon which should fill some gaps.

The Queen Elizabeth photographed in Rhodes last week, as seen from the vehicle ramp of the Blue Star Diagoras.

A lone fisherman in Rhodes.  The cruise ship season is not quite over yet.

Photographs by Nicholas Shum

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Slick with Snails

It is a damp and drizzly November day.  The gale force north easterly winds and plunging temperatures that have disrupted weekend shipping and sent everyone in Greece in search of winter woollies have largely passed Symi by.  Instead we have had little wind and persistent rainy weather with 20 mm recorded over the past 24 hours.  The weather is expected to clear by midday on Tuesday with temperatures remaining in the mid to low teens for the rest of the week.  Walking down to the office this morning in the rain, the wet stones of the Kali Strata were slick with snails and I did not pass a single person.

In the three weeks that I have been away the island has slipped into winter mode.  There are very few people on the streets, many businesses have closed for the winter and the ferry schedules have reached an all time low, with boats only running between Symi and Rhodes at weekends.  This means that anyone who has any business to do in Rhodes is forced to spend the night there – or the best part of a week if the job in hand cannot be completed before the departure of the Blue Star Diagoras at 16.00 on Monday afternoons.  At a time when everyone is counting the pennies this is very expensive and may make the difference between people being able to afford to go to Rhodes for essential medical treatment that can only be done there or going without. It also means that getting essential foodstuffs and commodities onto Symi has become very difficult. At the moment everyone’s hopes are pinned on the Panagia Skiadeni, Dodecanese Seaways’ new car ferry, which had an outing for the Panormitis Festival but has remained firmly in Kolonna ever since. There is also a rumour that the Proteus may be staging a comeback but it is too soon to tell if this is just wishful thinking.

Following in the footsteps of Greece’s Finance Minister, Mr Venezelos, who raised VAT on spinach pies to 23% but left it at 13% on custard pies, work on the new Symi cake shop in the lane next to the Symi Visitor Accommodation office is proceeding apace.  Our office is reverberating with drills and hammers and we are looking forward to the day when the work is finished and we can enjoy the aromas of freshly baked cakes instead.  Let them eat cake indeed.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

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