Walking Down the Kali Strata

Still hanging on - today's poppy photo from the Pedi valley.

Count the cats.

The sea of yellow corona daisies around the Taxiarchis hotel has gone, replaced by haystacks.

An innovative way of keeping the cats out of the roses.  Water bottles, filled with tap water to weigh them down.  They probably act as a sort of mulch and insulation too.

The Kali Strata, the 19th century staircase connecting Chorio and Yialos, is my usual walk to work.  Many of the mansions lining the route are looking very sad now and quite a few are up for sale.  What was once the most desirable address on Symi is now quite forlorn as few people these days want to climb up and down so many steps on a daily basis.  Many of these houses have fabulous views and traditional interiors just waiting to be loved again.  

Still weeding - he is about half way down now.

This is what awaits our intrepid municipal worker with his weeding tools and black bags.

A levitating cool cat at the bottom of the Kali Strata.

Wood for the baker's oven.  Symi still has several bakeries using traditional wood ovens and each bakery on the island has its own specialities.  The gluten-free diet is never really likely to catch on in Greece - bread, rusks and savoury pies are too much a part of the local culinary tradition.

Even on an overcast day Symi's famous amphitheatre harbour delights the eye.  Yialos is still very quiet though, with few yachts coming through.

No cats fishing here today - the water level is too high.  I spotted this shoal of tiny fish in the shallows this morning, swirling about in the eddies of a wake thrown up by a passing fishing boat.

Overcast and murky, one of the last major weather systems of the spring is passing over Greece at the moment, bringing strong winds, grey skies and rain showers countrywide.  The weather is expected to improve from Monday and from then on the forecast shows days of rising temperatures and lots of sunshine.

April used to be a very popular month for walkers, photographers and families with small children who wanted to enjoy the spring flowers and avoid the heat and high prices of school holiday times.  It is a great shame that in recent years so few people come to stay on Symi in April and May.  It is a glorious time to be here, as you can see from all the spring flower photographs I have put up in recent weeks.  While we might not have the abundance of Crete and Cyprus, Symi's wild flowers are still pretty spectacular.

Shops, cafes and tourist businesses are slowly opening up for the season.  As there are fewer visitors staying on the island in April these days, some places stay closed until late May as it is not worth their while opening up early, but the essentials are certainly available and the island has a more authentic feel.  Part of Symi's attraction is that it is not an out-and-out tourist destination. Real people live here. Thanks to the strict rules on tourist development on the island and the protected architecture, when you visit Symi you really are staying in a genuine Greek island community.  We still have some May availability in some of our houses so if you are looking for a last minute spring break, why not email us on symi-vis@otenet.gr this weekend?

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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Bright Week on Symi

The pink bindweed is one of the last of the spring flowers to appear on Symi, lingering on into May.

An attention-seeking poppy.

The black plastic water pipes that snake along the roads and lanes of Symi are masked, albeit briefly, by verdant verges.

You are probably getting a bit bored with poppy photos but they really are splendid this year and in a few weeks they will be gone, replaced by dusty hillsides and scrubby brown bushes.

This is the first year I have seen taverna chairs being painted along our road but there is a first time for everything!

Petunias lighting up a shady terrace in Chorio.

The massive task of weeding and painting the Kali Strata has begun.

He has a long way to go!

The view from the Symi Visitor Accommodation balcony today.  Yes, those are rainclouds!

Easter was celebrated with the usual exuberance and a mixture of fireworks and enormous bangs, whether dynamite or fertiliser bombs I don't know.  To the best of my knowledge, everyone's windows survived the weekend.

The weather was lovely - sunny and dry with a cool breeze.  The clouds came back on Monday and we had a lingering thunderstorm with light rain overnight.  This is the time of year when North Africa and the Middle East are heating up and continental Europe remains cold.  The Mediterranean is right between the two so we get thundershowers and occasional storms as the hot and cold air collide over us. Amazingly we haven't had any red rain or dust storms so far this year which is quite unusual.  Temperatures on Symi and in Rhodes are still around the 20 degree mark so not really beach weather yet.

The Panagia Skiadeni is now operating day trips from Rhodes, offering a diversion for early season tourists staying in hotels in Rhodes who are looking for an alternative to shivering on the beach or by the pool.  This is good for the cafes and tourist shops that have opened up along the waterfront in Yialos.

Have a good week!

Regards,
Adriana

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Symi Is Open for Business!

The leather shop and some of the other tourist shops along the Mouragio side of the harbour are now open.

The view from the Symi Visitor balcony is still mainly fishing boats. I took this photograph early in the week when the Dodecanese Seaways catamaran did a day trip from Rhodes. The Panagia Skiadeni did her first day trip yesterday.

Work on the new harbour has stopped for the Easter weekend so that the crew can spend the holiday with their families.  Look at how green the hillside is.

The wild lupins have joined the poppies and corona daisies in the terraces.

Muscari - the wild grape hyacinth.

Muscari growing from the base of an old stone wall in Lieni.

More of the tavernas and cafes are opening up, ready for visitors coming over from Rhodes.

An abundance of clover.  No wonder Symi Easter lamb is so succulent.

Maria has been busy, cutting wild oregano to dry in the shade and sell to passers by on the Kali Strata.

The Turkish gulets are back.

Lemonitissa church looming over Yialos.  This is one of the main churches in Chorio for the Easter celebrations at midnight on Saturday night.

The beach tavernas are not open yet and it will be while a month before the water taxis come into operation but that's no excuse not to buy designer beach wear.

New stock, waiting to be unpacked.  

Suddenly Symi is a lot more awake.  The day boats have started from Rhodes and there are a lot more people about, mostly Greek rather than foreigners.  More businesses are opening up and there is a buzz of activity around the harbour.  At this point it is still very low key as there are few tourists actually staying on the island and the main focus is people coming over from Rhodes for the day and people visiting their families for the Easter holidays.

At this point there is no much open in the evening as everyone is in church.  The most solemn services take place tonight and tomorrow, Good Friday, when the epitaphs are paraded through the parishes with a lot of loud bangs and firecrackers to deter Satan and other evil spirits. At midnight on Saturday night there will be an altogether different kind of loud bangs as the Resurrection is celebrated with fireworks and dynamite.

The grocery shops are overflowing with fresh produce for the Easter feast and the smell of baking wafts through the lanes of Chorio.  Every year brings more chocolate bunnies and eggs but Easter is still very much a non-commercial event in the islands.  The emphasis is on home-baked biscuits of all kinds and dyed boiled eggs to share with friends and family.

After a couple of days of drizzly weather it looks as though the Easter weekend itself will be mainly fine and dry with the possibility of thundershowers on Monday.  Temperatures are around 20 at midday, falling to around 14 at night.

Our office is closed for the long weekend so I shall be back on Tuesday with more photographs of Symi in April to share with you.

Kalo Pasca everybody!

Regards,
Adriana

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Spring, Glorious Symi Spring

The Vigla is the highest point on Symi so all the antennae and beacons are located up there.  If, however, you are in the shadow of the Vigla you may find that your phone picks up a stronger signal from Turkey than from Symi.  In direct line of sight, however, one can actually pick up quite strong 4G signals these days.

I can assure you that this poppy is absolutely real!  I spotted it on a verge next to the football field behind the power station in Pedi.

Best friends.

Lemon blossom

Rogue nasturtiums

The grape vines are waking up.  

You can see why wild clematis is sometimes called Old Man's Beard

Oak leaves unfurling in Lieni

The Pedi valley.

A lonely cloud between Symi and Turkey.

I spotted this atop a chimney that I pass every day and have never noticed before.  There is always something new to see on Symi.

We have been exceptionally lucky with the weather this March.  After that week of solid rain at the beginning of the month it has been sunny and mild and, as you can see, nature is reveling in the ideal growing conditions.  March can be a very stormy month so it is really exceptional to have such a long run of fine weather.

Tomorrow, 25 March, is a double holiday in Greece as it is the anniversary of the start of the Greek War of Independence from the Ottomans and it is also the Feast of the Annunciation.  The flags are up in the harbour and the children are running about, pursued by harassed teachers trying to coral them into groups for marching practice.

It looks as though there may be a break in the weather in the middle of next week with a possibility of rain showers. These, unfortunately, are likely to be of the 'red rain' persuasion, a phenomenon that combines fine dust from North Africa with moisture and turns everything ochre. We shall see!

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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Spring has Sprung on Symi

Mimosa madness in the town square, Yialos.

The valonia oaks are covered in tassels and humming with bees.

Every scrap of wasteland is covered with daisies and chamomile.

Even the  most neglected citrus trees are laden with ripening oranges and lemons.

An old courtyard wall in Chorio has become a vertical garden.

Freesias in front of the hardware store in Chorio.

Pink doesn't get any hotter than this.

As I was walking down the Kali Strata this morning I heard a snicker and a bleat.  It was a nanny goat, trimming a fig tree.  Her colouring makes her virtually invisible against the rocks and if she hadn't made a sound she would probably  have been unnoticed.

Her friend emerged from the ruin next door,  munching some rogue nasturtiums.  Now do you understand why the municipality defers weeding the Kali Strata until the last minute?

Fresh fish for sale from a step in Chorio.

After a stormy few days and some heavy rain - yes, even in Greece we can have wet bank holiday weekends! - the weather has cleared. A brisk north-westerly wind has dropped temperatures back to the levels they should have been in February and the children are dressed like little Eskimos as they head for their chilly classrooms. As far as nature is concerned, however, the equinox is only days away and flower power is taking over. Summer time visitors may think of Greece only in terms of bougainvillea tumbling over walls and pots of pelargoniums, the stuff of postcards and brochures, but the cooler months of the year bring forth a far wider range of flowering plants than those clichéd stalwarts. The shady places in the Pedi valley are still carpeted with wild cyclamens and the corona daisies are waist high on open ground.

The long-range forecast remains fairly cool and there is the possibility of rain again on Friday night and Saturday. Who knows? Perhaps we will make up for the drought of February after all.  As Greek Easter is quite late this year, at the beginning of May, a wet March isn't too much of a disaster as there is still all of April for painting houses and shops and whitewashing steps. Most of the restaurants and tavernas are still closed or engaged in essential maintenance such as cleaning cisterns, servicing refrigerators and fixing up tables and chairs.  Job lists are being drawn up and plans made.  One advantage of the seasonal nature of Symi's business is that the cafes, tavernas and restaurants on the island have a thorough clean out every year and everyone starts the season with fresh stock and new paint. There are no forgotten corners as everything is taken outside and the whole place scrubbed from top to bottom.  The Greeks take spring-cleaning seriously.

Greek Orthodox Lent has officially started.  Unlike Catholic and Protestant Lent where denial is part of the definition and virtuous children give up chocolate and sweets, Orthodox Lent focuses on giving up those foods that contain blood and to a lesser extent dairy products. This means no meat but lots of seafood, taramasalata (cod roe) and sesame products such as halvah and tehina.  There is an amazing array of recipes for fasting cakes and confections, using oil instead of butter, and vegetarians can also dine very well at this time of the year with lots of seasonal vegetable dishes. If you are visiting Symi in April you will find some unusual and delicious seasonal specialities on the menu that  you would never have the opportunity to sample in July!

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana

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