Some Symi Landmarks

Dressed stone and old steel doors at the bottom of the Kali Strata.



French boutique cruise ship L' Australis visited Symi earlier this week.

We see every style of boat in Yialos every day at this time of the year and there is always something to look at.  Regular visitors will recognise the line up of water taxis in the foreground and Valsami's famous statue of the Michaelaki, the little fisherboy.



The row of windmills on the crest between Yialos and Chorio is very much a Symi landmark. Believed to date back to the 17th century, some of them were still in use up to the 1950s.  They were used to mill grain which was grown elsewhere, primarily on the opposite coast in what is now modern day Turkey.  Most of Symi is far too steep and rocky for the cultivation of grain crops in any quantity although there are a few stone threshing circles up in the highlands, around Kokkimides.  On the skyline on the right one can make out the Neolithic stone circle that is believed by some to be the grave of King Nireus.  The locals call it Pontikokastro - mouse castle.



Villa Papanikola, home of many happy singles holidays in the 1980s and 90s, is changing colour as she undergoes a revamp.  Those are her blue pediments peeping above the rampant bougainvillea of the house in front.  This part of the hillside above the Kali Strata is becoming very overgrown - a good sign as it means there are fewer feral goats around.



The heavily barred windows of an old mansion on the Kali Strata.  The horizontal bars are threaded through holes punched in the vertical ones so these are very old, predating the modern art of welding.