Adriana's Symi-a Greek island diary: An Excellent Time to Book a Holiday in Greece

Wall to wall shipping in Yialos

The SymiVisitor Accommodation webcam is back in position after a brief maintenance holiday. Things Symi watchers can look out for these days include the new Iapetos horse and cart as it trots around the harbour and the wall-to-wall ships effect that happens at midday when the Symi, the Proteus, the Panagia Skiadeni, the Dodecanese Seaways catamaran and the Nikolaos are all in the harbour. The hotels and resorts in Rhodes are full enough to justify several large day excursion boats a day to Symi at the moment. While many of these day trippers arrive with packed lunches from their Rhodian hotels, a lot of them are indeed spending money locally which is good for the many small businesses in Symi harbour.

Symi is experiencing a mini heatwave at the moment with temperatures around 32 degrees. With the beach tavernas now open for the season the water taxis are busy, as are the round the island excursion boats. June is always a popular month for Symi’s regular visitors and there are a lot of familiar faces around.

On a more serious note, we are receiving emails every day, particularly from people in the United Kingdom, who have been reading articles in newspapers or who have received briefings from holiday companies, implying that Greece is in total economic meltdown with runs on the banks, holidays in jeopardy and various other bits of sensationalist and panic-fostering reporting. When it comes to attention-grabbing headlines, commonsense often takes a back seat. We can assure you that there are no problems affecting the banks on Symi, the ATMs have money in them as usual – except on pension day when the machines empty quicker – and it really is business as usual. Very few businesses in places like Symi have ever had credit card facilities due to the very high bank charges but this is nothing new. Right now the exchange rate is the most favourable it has been in a long time for visitors from outside the Eurozone and this is reflected in an increase in booking enquiries from further afield. Now is an excellent time to book a holiday in Greece, particularly if you book with a Greek company so that your money helps to boost the Greek economy and is spent locally.

If you are on Symi this weekend and want to help the local community, there is another fund-raising evening at the Olive Tree in Chorio on Saturday night, this time with Magic Mike O'Donnell and on Sunday there is a clean up the beaches day. Please see the posters around the town for more information.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana