Ruggedly Beautiful

After last week’s heat wave Symi has settled into more normal temperatures for the time of year with midday highs around 20 degrees and night time lows around 14 degrees centigrade.  Of course there are plenty of sun traps, particularly in areas facing south, where the temperature can actually climb up to 30 at midday but this is unusual and it is still quite cold in the shade.  We are having heavy dewfalls at night and quite a lot of mist which only burns off quite late in the morning.  No significant rain is expected for the next few days.

Preparations for the season are well under way in the harbour and in Chorio, with much cleaning and painting going on.  The first visitors are expected next week and the day trip boats are also expected to start early in April as there are already quite a lot of tourists in Rhodes with time to kill, it being a little chilly still for swimming.

Ruggedly beautiful with amazingly clear water.

This mysterious cave is only accessible from the water, and the interior is a massive cavern full of seawater.

Symi’s beaches are still deserted and it will be some weeks yet before the beach franchise operators and water taxis set up their operations for the season.  Regular visitors to Symi will be aware that most beaches on the island can only be accessed by boat, or by some fairly serious hiking.  This is sometimes a little puzzling to first timers who are unaware that Symi is, to all intents and purposes, a mountain peak poking out of the sea. This is why there are so few waterfront properties and why being able to see the sea from your accommodation does not necessarily mean that it is possible to swim from the terrace.  These photographs give an idea of what St George and Nanou, two popular and spectacular beaches, are like out of season, when there is no one around except the occasional tortoise.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

If the cliffs of St George look vaguely familiar to old movie buffs, it is because they were used in 'The Guns of Navarone'.  More recently this was the venue for a BASE jumping event last August.

Nanou - no umbrellas or sun beds for a while yet, but plenty of natural shade under the trees.

The lone inhabitant of Nanou in March.

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Green Shoots of Recovery?

The population of Symi was roused from its usual mid-morning coffee break by several brisk toots on a horn as the Panagia Skiadeni, Dodecanese Seaways' new car ferry, announced her triumphant arrival in Yialos, Symi's main harbour. Although there was nothing on any schedule to inform of her coming, various trucks were waiting in happy anticipation at the clock tower.  They may yet be waiting a while longer as she is showing no signs of departing again.  Her schedule should be appearing on www.12ne.gr/en in the next day or so.

Green shoots of recovery?  The weather has warmed up considerably in the last few days and leaf buds are unfurling wherever one looks.  The valonia oaks are rapidly greening over and the figs have turned from bare stalks to standard bearers.

I was in Rhodes last week on business. The intention was to go on Sunday evening and come back on the Wednesday afternoon Blue Star but with the 48 hour strike of the Panhellenic Seamen the ferry schedule was thrown into disarray and I only returned to Symi late on Friday evening.  As I had time in hand I went on several long walks around Rhodes town, camera in hand, and took literally hundreds of photographs.  Here is just a small sample for your amusement.

One of the intriguing things about Rhodes is that wherever one goes there are archaeological sites - much to the despair of property developers who often wind up with their projects on hold while finds are examined, and their architectural plans changed to avoid destroying whatever has turned up. This amazing mosaic is part of an excavation under a housing complex in a Rhodian back street. Rattling around Rhodes in a taxi or vehicle one is unaware of all this as it is mostly hidden below street level, so if you are interested in the many layers of Rhodian history, don your walking shoes and peer over railings.

The moat around Rhodes Old Town also holds a few surprises that passing motorists are unlikely to see. This football pitch, for example.  It does not seem to have seen much use this winter.  Perhaps the children have grown up and gone away, or perhaps they prefer watching it on television to playing it in the extremely cold weather we have experienced this winter.

And where better to graze ones horse than in a moat? There is undoubtedly a far longer precedent for this than football in Rhodes Old Town.  No, that isn't a knight, dozing under the tree.  Just an unidentifiable piece of old scrap metal.

The moat at the top of Rhodes Old Town is far more sedate.  No football or grazing horses here.  Just heaps of stone canon balls and, surprise, an archaeological dig.  There are guided walks around the moat in the summer and it is a great way of seeing the Old Town from a different angle.

25 March is Greek Independence Day and in the days leading up to this holiday the shops in Rhodes were full of displays of traditional dress for the children participating in the parades.  For photographs of some of the Symiot children in their parade finery, please see Out and About where Jenine Woodhall of the Olive Tree cafe in Chorio has shared some of her photographs.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

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Blue Skies and Daisies

It may be chilly but the skies are blue and the daisies lush. 

While the areas closest to the road and therefore vehicle access have been extensively rebuilt in recent years, many of the houses in the oldest part of Chorio at the head of the Kataraktis are still ruins and this neighbourhood is only sparsely populated.

Many businesses are still packed up for the winter, particularly those that are on the 'cold' side of the harbour.  The summer season on Symi does not really begin until the middle of May when the weather is more settled and there are more tourists around.  Some Greek holiday destinations further north have longer winters than we do and only have a tourist season from June to September so we are quite fortunate.

Bright new flags were put up for Dodecanese Day on 7 March.  The next big holiday is Greek Independence Day on 25 March. This is also the Feast of the Annunciation, making it a religious as well as a public holiday.  The ochre building in the centre foreground is Symi's customs house and duty free shop. The open green structure to the right of that is the fish market although these days fishermen usually sell their catch direct from the boats when they come in, first thing in the morning.

The Nireus Hotel in Harani, still wrapped in plastic against the winter storms.  This area can be really battered in winter gales and the hotels along the front minimise damage by wrapping as much as they can in plastic.  Even the larger plants are often wrapped in sacking to keep the salt off.

The clear waters off Harani, swirled by the wake of the incoming ferry.

Despite a much promised heatwave Symi is still shivering in a cold north westerly wind that is keeping temperatures down around 11 degrees.  Gale force winds in the Aegean played havoc with shipping this week as Pireaus was closed due to a shipping ban.  With so few all weather ports in Greece, particularly in the islands, the policy is to keep ships safely in harbour during bad weather as there is no where safe for them to shelter if things deteriorate.  The wind dropped sufficiently for commercial shipping to resume yesterday but it is still quite rough out.  Fortunately this wind direction does not cause swell problems in Rhodes harbour so activity was able to get going again fairly promptly.  The wind is expected to ease over the weekend with slightly warmer temperatures than usual next week as a high pressure system comes into effect.  The photograph above shows the Blue Star coming in from Pireaus en route to Rhodes at midday on Thursday, more than 24 hours late.  She will only be coming through from Rhodes this evening after fitting in a trip to Meyisti (Kastellorizon), the most remote of all the Greek islands.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,

Adriana

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Waiting in the Wings

At this time of the year Symi is a mass of self-sown hanging gardens, whether from natural rock formations or
from the stone walls of ruined houses.

Rush hour on the Kali Strata.
 The Old Markets boutique hotel is in a little lane just to the left of this picture.

The sunny weather broke on Sunday with showery squalls and the first red rain of the year. This phenomenon occurs in the spring, when sandstorms from the Sahara combine with rainy weather over the Mediterranean and it literally rains mud.  More of the same is expected but a lot of people were out cleaning the fine film of sand from their cars this morning as it allowed to dry it can be very difficult to remove.  It is not for nothing that so many houses in this part of the world are tinted ochre and terracotta rather than the usual bright white.

Many parts of Greece, including the Peloponnese, experienced snowfalls over the weekend.  The long range forecast remains unsettled with falling temperatures again as heavy snow is forecast for neighbouring Turkey.  Spring may be waiting in the wings but she is a very shy performer at the moment. The lengthening days, however, bring more light and warmth and as long as the Easter lambs are fattening in the daisies we know that the real end of winter is in sight.

DodecaneseSeaways have now released their schedule up to 6 May.  It is not very encouraging but does give us something to work around, particularly as the Blue Star Diagoras has agreed to continue a weekly service for April and May.  More information on how to get to Symi can be found on Andy’s TravelBlog. 

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

This mansion on the Kali Strata was carefully plastered to look as as though it was made out of far more elaborate dressed stone. As the building falls into ruin and the plaster flakes away, details of the original construction are revealed.

Stone roses and faded terracotta pigments.

Typical Symi colours - whitewash (asvesti) tinted with ochre powder.

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Gentle Reflections

Much of Symi's shoreline is like this - sheer cliffs rather than sandy beaches.

 The moon is full and the equinox approaches so we should be battening down for gales but right now the weather on Symi is as calm as one might ever wish it.  Sharp shadows and gentle reflections are characteristic of the light at this time of the year.  Drenching dewfalls and slowly rising temperatures are turning the lanes and steps into magical mossy gardens with nodding poppies and droning bees at every turn.  The sun shone for the Dodecanese Day Parade on 7 March, a celebration of the Dodecanese Islands finally becoming a part of Modern Greece after the Second World War.  A timely reminder, perhaps, to the mainland, that these islands on the border with Turkey do have needs and rights as well as obligations.

Despite the interminable gloom in the media, spring is in the air and with it a spirit of optimism that is very characteristic of the Greeks.  The Symiots have seen the fortunes of their small island rise and fall many times over the centuries – indeed it is the legacy of ruined neo-classical mansions from the island’s late 19^th century heyday as a sponge fishing centre that form the nucleus of Symi’s attraction as a tourist destination.  A people that has managed to carve a civilisation out of bare rocks and barren hillsides and is no stranger to hardship is not going to disappear under a barrage of negative media coverage.

Here are some photographs to whet the appetite.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

A good day for washing and drying cuddly toys on the Kali Strata.

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An Encouraging Sight

After a bright and sunny weekend Symi is once again under cloudy skies as another low pressure system moves slowly across Greece. This time we will see showery and unsettled weather for much of the week but temperatures should be between 8 and 18 degrees rather than the bitter cold we experienced last week.  As Symi’s traditional neo-classical houses have high ceilings and thick stone walls they are very difficult to heat adequately, even for those who have the rare luxury of central heating.  While one can set the air conditioner to warm, if one has one of course, this is a very expensive way of heating a house and these days few can afford that kind of electricity consumption.  Instead an increasing number of fireplaces are being put back into service and cast iron wood stoves are very popular.  Scrap wood, pine cones and wind blown branches don’t lie around for long and truck loads of firewood are being brought down the mountain and sold.  It is as well that we will only have cold weather for a few more weeks as it would be sad to see the island’s forests disappear in a wave of austerity-driven frugal heating.  The planting of mulberry trees in the town square in Yialos does not really count as reforestation. There are, however, an increasing number of self-seeded conifers growing out of the rocky slopes and less accessible places that are an encouraging sight.  The reduction in the feral goat population combined with the fencing off of property as part of the Land Registration Act a few years ago which reduced indiscriminate grazing had a role to play in this.  There are now far more fences between the trees and hungry livestock.

Supporters of the winter cat feeding scheme will be happy to know that Symi Animal Welfare now has a dedicated website which is worth a browse. 

Summer visitors often ask what people do to amuse themselves on the island during the winter, when everything is shut. Well, apart from swopping books and DVDs and hosting dinner parties and going for long walks on sunny days there are also musical evenings, poetry readings, art classes, group crossword sessions, weddings, christenings, name days…  There is a poetry reading at the Symi Gallery on the Kali Strata this afternoon at 16.00.  The theme this time is ‘Naked’ which sounds intriguing – particularly as we are all particularly well muffled up at the moment!

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

That is a little patch of snow visible on the distant mountain in the middle of the picture.

A tenacious cypress growing out of a cliff.

The old part of Chorio, above the Kataraktis.  

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Greek Traditions of Hospitality

A Place in the Sun.
This old tom cat has found a comfy place for a nap.  

Symi Frozen Lamb.
There is ice on those puddles.

March began with some exceptionally cold weather – so cold that we actually had flurries of snow in parts of Chorio, Xisos and Nimborio on Wednesday afternoon.  It is unusual for Symi to experience sustained periods of freezing weather lasting several days, although it is quite normal to have occasional winter nights of ice when the wind blows strongly from the north and when Turkey has heavy snowfall.  Looking back in my diary, late snow is not that uncommon in this part of the world.  The weather is expected to warm up again over the weekend as the wind changes to the south. This may bring some showery weather which is also normal for the time of year.

With Easter and the first visitors of the year expected in April, preparations for the season have begun.  Most people wait until the last minute to do external painting as one needs good weather to do that, but shops and businesses that have been closed up all winter are being opened up and aired and there is a hum of cement mixers and the whiff of fresh paint in the air.  The Stani cake shop is already comfortably settled in its new premises next to the Symi VisitorAccommodation office and Symi Spacephone has moved from the Aktaion to the old Symi Women’s Association shop in the centre of Yialos.  Soroco boutique is moving into the old Stani cake shop next to Merakles taverna and the old Chouchi Gold shop is being refitted as, believe it or not, a pedicure parlour with nibbling fish!

Easter is very much a family affair in Greece so large numbers of foreign visitors are never expected at that time but the Greek tradition of preparing to welcome guests for Easter is one that will never die out in Greece, no matter how difficult times may be.  The Easter celebrations are a good excuse for family members living and working in Rhodes to come back to Symi and foreign visitors often find themselves invited to join family festivities.  Greek traditions of hospitality are indomitable.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

A beautifully painted front door in Chorio.

A Frozen Angel on the Kastro.

Bitter Oranges in a Garden near Alemina, Chorio.

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