Symi Epiphany 2017

The view from the Symi Visitor Accommodation office during the rain storm on Tuesday afternoon.  If you ever go to the webcam at this time of the year and it isn't working, it is because we have unplugged everything due to stormy weather.  As most of Symi's utility lines are above ground lightning strikes do a lot of damage, travelling down telephone lines as well as along power lines, and sorting out the damage can take weeks on a small island so we have to err on the side of caution.

The view from the Symi Visitor Accommodation office this morning as the crowds gather for the Epiphany celebrations.  Similar booths decorated with oranges are erected at Harani, Pedi and Panormitis.

You can see the oranges and the icon quite clearly here. The priest and the mayor are behind all that foliage.

The priest casts the cross into the water from which it is retrieved by the young boys, hence the lad in the bathing trunks while everyone else is wrapped up against the cold.

Splash!

Heading back to dry land for towels, warm clothes and a year of blessings.

A fire burning near Bozburun on the Turkish coast this morning.

A plume of smoke of a very different sort.  Many Symiots use wood-burners in the winter to keep warm as these are quite economical to run and some versions can even be used for cooking.  We can't buy fancy smoke-less fuel here.  Firewood tends to be whatever is available.  The Minister of the Environment appealed to the population earlier this week to avoid using wood fires as they are causing a smog problem in the larger towns and cities.  Unfortunately he did not make any practical suggestions as to what people can realistically do for alternative heating in austerity Greece.

In the absence of heating it is not just the humans who wrap up warmly at this time of the year.  Even the cats plump out with much thicker coats.

It has been a stormy week in Greece and there is more to come as Storm Ariadne brings bitterly cold air down from Siberia.  Much of Greece will be at freezing or below this weekend and early next week.  Even here on Symi we can expect a high of 6 and a low of 4 tomorrow, Sunday and Monday.  Athens will be colder than London, Paris or Rome this weekend and the Athens municipality has announced that the main metro stations will be open to the homeless to shelter from the extreme temperatures.  No one gets hosed down with cold water in shop fronts here as there is a realisation that homelessness is not a lifestyle choice.

The Blue Star came through as scheduled this morning although those travelled on her from Piraeus reported a bumpy ride due to strong winds in the Aegean.

Have a warm weekend, planning your next Symi holiday with Wendy and myself at Symi Visitor Accommodation.

Regards,
Adriana

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Symi Gold - Chronia Polla!

A sumptuous gold and crimson angel peeps through a window in Chorio.  In the Greek Orthodox church, the 12 days of Christmas come to an end with the Epiphany celebrations on 6 January so decorations stay up until then.  We have many name days as well as Independence Day, Carnival and Clean Monday and the whole of Lent before the first Easter egg appears in the shops here. Everything is appropriate to its season in Greece and looked forward to with enjoyment. 

A lovingly painted close of houses on the narrow one way street that passes close to the heart of Chorio.

The gleaming white wash of summer is washing away on the Kali Strata, replaced by a mossy garden between the old paving stones.

The dividing line between town and country is very blurred on Symi and at this time of the year I never know what I will see on my walk down the Kali Strata. These two seem quite happy.  It is not very clear in the photograph but there is a small Christmas tree, complete with baubles, at the bottom of the steps on the left of the picture.

The buildings on the right have been painted the traditional way, with ochre pigment mixed with asvesti (whitewash). The ones on the left have been painted with acrylic paint. Both are  now deteriorating but I find the ones on the right with their diverse damp patterns as the moisture seeps through the pigment much more interesting than the ones on the left where the damp simply builds up behind the paint which then drops off the wall.

A small freighter sheltering in Yialos. The original name is still visible on the stern - The River Dart of London.  She's a long way from home.

The ochre and brown colour scheme is a legacy of the Italian occupation.  Before that, Symi's houses were painted loulaki, a wonderful warm blue made by mixing azure and indigo pigments with whitewash.  Fragments of this can sometimes still be seen on old ruins up in Chorio, around the Kastro.

The vines are turning russet in the cold.

Oranges ripen in an abandoned garden on the Kali Strata.

The Virginia creepers have shed their leaves, revealing a crumbling balcony beneath.

Happy New Year and Chronia Polla to all my readers and fans around the world.  It is hard to believe that I first started writing this blog in March, 2001, long before broadband, digital cameras and blogging services.  I used to write up my two or three paragraphs - no pictures in those days - and email them by dial up to Mike Gadd,  our webmaster in the UK, who used to paste them onto a webpage for me.  When the page got too full, he would archive it and start another. Blogging has become a lot easier since then and I am also on my fourth camera but I still find things that catch my eye that I want to share with you. Symi is that sort of place. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Symi is experiencing a proper winter this year.  Rainy and stormy days have outnumbered dry ones and temperatures are low.  Those of you who follow Symi Visitor Accommodation on Facebook will know that it snowed on the mountain on Friday. The long range forecast is rain for the next few days with gale force winds on Thursday and Friday followed by very low temperatures over the weekend and early next week so we may well see more of the white stuff on the mountains. Today is a high of 11 and a low of 8 but by Saturday it is likely to be 9 and 4 and on Sunday a decidedly chilly high of 6 and low of 2.  Symi's glorious neo-classical architecture with its high ceilings and inward opening windows does not lend itself well to heating and the 'Symi layered look' owes more to practicality than sartorial style.  Hats, scarves and gloves are often worn indoors and are considerably cheaper than turning the air conditioner on to 'heat' and watching the electricity meter whiz round.  Many people have wood burning stoves these days - even the Stani patisserie next to our office has one glowing away in the corner of the shop, the chimney routed out of the top window and up onto the roof.

Friday is the Epiphany and a serious holiday in Greece. In Yialos, Harani and Pedi booths decorated with oranges are set up for the service and the priests cast crucifixes into the freezing waters for young men to recover.  With a gale warning and torrential rain expected, they will be brave young men indeed.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

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