Christmas, Cabbages and Conifers

An early sign of Christmas on a shop in Chorio. So far everyone in the harbour has been too busy with the mud to worry much about putting up decorations but in the parts of Chorio that escaped unscathed, there are few tentative tokens of festive cheer.

The kiosk at the Kampos bus stop is also feeling festive.

Look at the size of those cabbages from Kalymnos!

Not much happening in Yialos this week.

The bridge survived surprisingly unscathed considering the thousands of tons of rocks, cars and rubble that rammed into it.  The figures in red just visible on the far side of the bridge, near the fish market, are electricians replacing the lights on the bridge which were smashed. The water is still muddy as there is still mud draining away from the square and the back of the harbour.

Yialos square this week.  Until the last of this red mud washes away, the water at the head of the harbour will remain muddy.  To the right of the digger, and the no entry sign there is a brown pile of what look like turfs. This is actually the synthetic surface for the children's playground. This has all had to be lifted as the playground was buried under mud.

Away from the mud zone, on the lower steps of the Kali Strata, the Virginia creeper lights up the stone steps.

One day someone will doubtless come along and hack away the creeper to restore the abandoned building behind it but in the meantime let us enjoy its luminous beauty.

Empty seas and startling contrasts.  My humble camera cannot cope with such extremes of light and shade.

Thomas, the patriarch skip cat on my corner, sunning himself with Chorio in the background.

Chorio in the sun, Nimborio in the shade.  You can see the scars of new wash-aways and water courses on the steep cliffs that form the northern shore of Nimborio bay.

You are looking at the roots of a large cypress tree in what was a terrace at the top of my property.  We didn't have any cypress trees, either vertical or horizontal, before 13 November.  This tree washed at least 100 metres down the Agia Marina river from the cemetery or even further up the hill.  The stones that tumbled down with it stripped the bark off the trunk, leaving the wood exposed.  An extreme delivery of winter firewood!

The rest of the tree.  It neatly rammed between two Kermes oaks, destroying old stone walls and an old shepherd's croft in the process.   Those little colourful bits of red and blue are the remains of plastic flowers from the cemetery. There is a trail of them all the way down into the valley.

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Life's a Beach

Symi has a portfolio of small unique beaches.  Each is different in character and most can only be reached by water taxi although, in the case of Agia Marina (seen here) and St Nicholas, there are also footpaths for the energetic.

As is typical in these waters, yachts drop their anchors and then take a line ashore so that they don't swing around too much.  The line of red buoys defines the swimming area at Agia Marina.

The little chapel on the island in the bay is dedicated to St Marina and is a popular venue for wedding blessings.

Agia Marina's sophisticated appearance is largely possible due to its sophisticated infrastructure. The beach has a water recycling system which is used to keep the best lawns in the Dodecanese lush and green.  It also has a large sound proofed generator discreetly placed behind the trees on one of the upper terraces that keeps the fridges, freezers, water pumps and so on running.  As the island faces Turkey there is no Greek mobile phone signal so all shopping for supplies has to be carefully planned - no after thoughts! The area to the left is a dining area where light lunches such as tuna carpaccio are served.

Coffee or cocktails.

The pomegranates are swelling. A few more weeks and they will be red.

Agia Marina is one of the few places where the seabed is natural sand, making this a popular place for swimming.

Meanwhile, back in Yialos there were lots of  Turkish motor boats over for the Eid holiday.  If you subtracted the Turkish yachts and gulets from Symi's waters this year, there would not be many boats left.

Master of all he surveys - the cats are starting to look for sunny places as the weather cools off and are as often on top of awnings as beneath.

Another sign of changing weather - dew fall in the early mornings.

A well-fed supermarket cat in Yialos, heading over to me to see if there are any snacks in the offing!

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Everyone is Welcome

The view from Symi Visitor Accommodation today - two water taxis are out, the other two showing signs of being wrapped up for the winter.  There are plenty of Symi's regular visitors and property owners around still but as the beaches are in shadow from quite early in the day, people don't spend as much time on the beach.

As the number of yachts diminishes, the fishing boats become more obvious.

The head of the harbour at 11 this morning.  Very quiet apart from the murmur of conversation from the various cafes.

Fishing nets in Yialos. Surprisingly there were no cats about.

The palm trees along the front have trusses of dates.  They were only planted a few years back and always have a slightly desperate air, particularly when being blasted by the salt spray of winter gales but are hanging on somehow.

The pebble mosaic of St John's church in Yialos.

The blue windows and steps at the far end are part of the Petridion, the junior school in Yialos.

Fanciful botanicals and geometric shapes.

A grapevine outside the old forge at the back of Yialos.

Looking down at Harani and Mouragio from the Kali Strata this morning, the sea looks very empty these days.  The little hire boats have gone from the clock tower, packed away until next summer.

Looking up towards the Old Markets from the bottom of the Kali Strata.  The only part of the hotel that you can see in this picture is the arched doorway which leads to what would have been the covered souk.  The rest of the hotel is hidden by the tall narrow ochre building in the centre of the pictue.

The wet bikes from NOS Paradise beach have also retreated up the mountain for the winter.

The yummy mummies and their chicks are doing well. The secret to survival if you live a free range feral life evidently lies in being well camouflaged against the landscape.

The plumbago is going mad at the moment, heavy with endless trusses of vivid blue trusses.

There are lots of familiar faces on Symi at the moment - regular visitors who always come for Symi's mild autumn sunshine, property owners coming for a late season holiday and to close up their houses for the winter, walking groups, photographers and writers and people who enjoy a valid excuse to opt out of the rat-race and do nothing much in particular for a couple of weeks.  Cafes and the beach fill the days quite nicely and the evenings are spent in the bars and tavernas, catching up with old friends and making new ones.  It is still mild enough to sit outside in the evenings although one might want a shawl or long sleeves after sunset.  The long range weather forecast still won't commit to when the next rain might fall and the heavy rain and thundershowers that have been affecting other parts of the Mediterranean are passing either to the north or the south of us. Temperatures are still in the twenties.

This evening there is a fund-raising event for Solidarity Symi at Agia Marina which promises to be a magical evening. Imagine spending an evening under the stars at a pretty beach taverna and coming home by water taxi late at night, phosphoresence lighting up the boat's wake. Tickets are 50 euros per person, including the water taxi, dinner and wine, and there will be an auction.

On Friday evening there is a thank you party at Apostoli's taverna in Pedi for all the volunteers as well as the hard-working police and port police.  This will be 10 euros per person and everyone is welcome.  We will be putting up more details on our Facebook pages tomorrow.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana

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Leave the Worries of the World Behind.

Gone fishing.

Agia Marina island with thunder clouds building up over Turkey in the distance.

The little chapel on the island at Agia Marina.  This is a popular venue for wedding blessings and was where Caroline Carver and Kenny Doughty celebrated their wedding.

Even though I live here it is not often that I am able to take a Sunday off and go out on the water so this last weekend was a real treat.  The water taxi service does not start for another week or so, when they all have their licenses, and the beach tavernas are still setting up for the season, so our only companions were Symiot fishermen and locals busy whitewashing chapels and clearing weeds in preparation for the summer season.  The sea was the irresistible clear azure for which the Mediterranean is famed and the children enjoyed swimming in the warm shallows off Agia Marina.  It is easy to leave the worries of the world behind in such beautiful surroundings.

There are still some thunderstorms around, mainly over the Turkish coast, and we were treated to a spectacular display on Sunday night.   As there was a lot of dust in the air initially the lightning flashed orange and red, but once the rains started on the distant shores the air cleared to the more usual white lightning.  Much of Greece and Turkey is experiencing thunder storms and heavy showers at the moment as the hot air of the Mediterranean Basin collides with the cooler air of Continental Europe.  It will be a few weeks before this settles into the summer meltemi breezes.

If you are arriving on Symi this week make a note in your diary the opening of the new exhibition at the Symi Gallery on the Kali Strata on Friday night.  There is also live music at Giorgio’s taverna in Chorio on a Friday night, starting at about 9 so you can have a real cultural evening going from one event to another. 

Here are some pictures to whet your appetite for summer holidays to come.

Regards,

Adriana

Apostoli up the ladder, putting up the pergola over the taverna.  The other taverna in Pedi, Katsaras, is down the other side of the bay  and is already open for business. We had supper there ourselves on Saturday evening.

The foot path along the front of Pedi Bay, from Apostoli's taverna to the bus stop and the Pedi Beach Hotel.  In a few days those boats will all be launched and the shore line becomes a welcoming beach with sun umbrellas and loungers for those who want to combine lunch with swimming and sunbathing.

The rocks at the entrance to Pedi Bay are called the Paximadia which means rusks in Greek.

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