Symi Spring Pastels

Pachos kafeneion near our office is closed for a few days for its annual spring-clean and repaint.  It is quite common here to see business owners doing their own painting and decorating.  

The two boutiques on the other side of us are now open.

You must admit, Symi harbour is exceptionally photogenic.

The herb and spice shop by the bridge has opened for the summer.

The mulberry trees that were planted in the town square a few years ago have suddenly turned into proper trees and should provide good shade.

One of Symi's several sponge shops.  That is the National Bank of Greece next door. They have an ATM just inside the doorway. There is another ATM further down, in the vestibule of the Alpha Bank and then there is a third on the opposite side, next to the pharmacy.

The view from the Symi Visitor Accommodation balcony today.  

Pretty spring pastels are always in fashion on Symi.

There is an amazing array  of fresh produce available at the moment as there is an overlap between the cool weather vegetables like leeks and cauliflowers, the strictly spring time artichokes and then the first of the summer cucumbers, tomatoes and aubergines. No, the pineapples on the right are not local - they, like the bananas, come from South America.  Greek produces a wide range of fresh produce through the year but tropical fruits are not on the list.

A quiet lane in Yialos.

It is still fairly cool with a light north-westerly breeze and we had several hours of steady drizzle on Saturday night.  Temperatures are forecast to rise steadily through the week, peaking at 26 degrees on Saturday, just in time for the May Day long weekend.  There is no further rain on the horizon and unless we have a shower in May, the summer drought has begun.  Symi has one of the longest dry seasons in Greece and can go without any rain at all from April through to early November.

Work has resumed across the bay, on the new commercial harbour and jetty, and I can hear a steady distant 'tok-tok-tok' as they chip away at the rocky shoreline.  They are still creating a large flat area at the base of the hill and widening the frontage as far as Petalo.  Once this becomes operational there will be far less heavy vehicle traffic through Yialos as the car ferries will dock and unload there instead of at the clock tower.  Symi may also then provide shelter to occasional cruise ships late in the season when strong winds and heavy swells close Rhodes harbour.

Sorry but that's it for poppy pictures for another year!

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana

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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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Making Hay While the Sun Shines on Symi

The Blue Star Paros at 8 a.m., Friday morning.  The boat comes and goes in a cloud of music as they play 'Fur Elise' as the boarding ramp goes up and down. a sound more evocative of old fashioned ice cream vans than a Greek island ferry!  You can see the new customs and immigration shed next to the clock tower more clearly in this photograph.

The faded elegance of the Kali Strata. Sometimes, as I walk down here to work I find myself wondering what it was like when this was Symi's shopping 'high street' - as you can see, the houses on the left all have what would have been business premises below. Seamstresses, cobblers (there was still one when I first came here), butchers, fishmongers, dairies (there was also one of those when I first came here) - all the things that a bustling town of 20 000 people would have needed.

This was probably a post office, if the bust of Hermes is anything to go by. These days it is an artist's studio.

Some of the bougainvilleas are starting to flower again.

Meanwhile, in the Pedi valley it is time to make hay while the sun shines.

Profiti Ilias, a monastery dedicated to the Prophet Elijah, sits high on the hill above the Pedi valley.  It is believed that there was an ancient temple to Apollo on that site and there are remains of ancient walls visible below the monastery.  

Goats using an old stone wall as a route from the hillside into a neglected walled garden.  This is the dry and arid side of the Pedi valley with more stones than soil and little grows apart from squills, thistles and euphorbia.

Keep out the goats and let the poultry roam among the daisies and this is what you get.  

Just in case you couldn't see the poultry for the daisies, here is a close up!

The austerity measures and high unemployment have turned many Greeks back to their agrarian roots.  Many long neglected patches of garden are undergoing a renaissance in the Pedi valley, not as a therapeutic indulgence but to put some food on the table.  Prickly pears and figs are easy to grow. The beds contain courgettes, lettuce, chard, spinach, rocket and herbs such as flat leaf parsley and mint which are used in abundance in this part of the world.  The main constraint is the lack of natural water so this is very much a winter activity.  

There is not much in the way of zoning here and bars, cafes and shops are often tucked among the houses in residential areas.  

Symi is warming up and there is no rain on the horizon.  Temperatures are now heading into the high twenties and we will probably see thirty degrees centigrade next week. There is a lot of dust suspended in the air and the sky has a pinkish hue today.  Ochre is a practical colour to paint buildings in a region often touched by the sandstorms of Africa and the Middle East. The kiosks have got their ice cream fridges up and running and the plastic drop cloths are rolled up.

Down in the harbour the epidemic of painting and decorating continues as shopkeepers press on with their preparations for the season.  Sometimes someone sets up a radio for some motivating music but today it is just the sound of voices, scratching sandpaper and swishing paint brushes that comes through the office windows.

The bus has gone to Rhodes again so I will be taking a taxi home if I can't get a lift.  As Symi is so steep, the usual pattern is to walk down and ride up - unless one is fit enough to walk both ways which quite a lot of people do if it is not too hot.  The arrival of the motor road about 35 years ago must have really revolutionised life for the islanders as before that there was no easy way to get from Yialos to Chorio and steps and ramps were the only option. The motor road is considerably longer than the Kali Strata and the other old pedestrian routes and has to make a generous sweep out of the harbour and back up to the windmills to cope with the gradient, making it quite a spectacular drive. Very few houses on Symi have close vehicle access as the lanes are very narrow and punctuated by steps.  The houses are close packed with little space where one could open up space for traffic.  There has never been a tradition of wheeled transport here as it is so steep. Those early Symiots must have been very fit!

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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A Quick Hello from Symi

The view from the terrace, Lemonitissa Studio in Chorio.

Crumbling glory in Chorio.

Magic clothespegs.

Nature taking hold.

Waiting for breakfast outside a supermarket in Chorio.

Even paint peels more picturesquely on Symi!

A venerable vine on the Kali Strata.

After a weekend of gusty dust storms, thunder showers and the dreaded 'red rain' that covers everything in a fine crust of Saharan sand, the weather is set fair for the next 10 days or at least for as far as the computer projections the meteo sites use can run.  If the webcam goes murky, that is usually the reason!

More people arrived at the weekend to open up their houses and I have had a busy morning of visitors in the office. There is a lot more activity generally in the harbour and where once there was silence punctuated by occasional voices there is now a continuous buzz.

Time to dash for the bus.

Have a good week!

Regards,
Adriana

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Awash with Glorious Poppies

Friday's Dracunculus vulgaris in all its odiferous splendour.  

A donkey, head down among the daisies near the sports facility.  Whoever has that vegetable patch to the left of the donkey has a lot of weeding ahead as the rows of onions, broadbeans and artichokes are awash with glorious wild poppies.

Every old stone wall is a hanging garden at the moment.  Various stone crops, tiny ferns, daisies and figs turn the tumbled down ruins and winding lanes of old Chorio into a wonderful garden at this time of the year.

The grape vines have their new leaves and the housewives use them to make delicious dolmades.  Fresh vine leaves are often picked and frozen or pickled in brine for use later in the year when the leaves on the plants are tough and lack that spring succulence.

Poppies and figs in the Pedi Valley

Hello!  Is it me you are looking for?  A tagged ewe wants to know who is taking her photograph.  Note the furled dracunculi in the background, to her left. That is a really mean wild thistle to her right.  Those are oregano bushes in the background.

Down in the harbour the Symi and the Panagia Skiadeni have started bringing day trippers over from Rhodes on a regular basis and there are definitely more people around.  Foreign property owners are arriving to prepare their houses for the summer season so there are lots of familiar faces around. They are also surveying the damage from one of the wettest winters anyone can remember so there is plenty of painting and airing out of damp furnishings going on.

It has now been dry for about a fortnight so doors and shutters have shrunk to more normal proportions.  The long range forecast shows lots of wind but no definite rain so we are unlikely to have more than one more downpour between now and October.  Temperatures are still fairly cool, just hovering above the 20 mark and there is not much difference between day time and evening temperatures.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana

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Kalo Pasca!

The Pedi valley yesterday.  There is a chilly north-westerly wind blowing which is only expected to drop some time tomorrow so it is unusually cold on Symi for the time of the year.  It is only about 14 degrees at the moment.  There is a shipping ban in effect so the Blue Star ferries are tied up in Piraeus and many parts of Greece have experienced late snow.

Looking across towards central Chorio from Lieni.

Some optimistically placed no-parking cones along the waterfront in Yialos.

A windy sky and a chilly sea. The two Dodecanese Seaways catamarans are sheltering from the storm as Rhodes harbour is untenable.

More places are opening up for the Easter weekend.

A ruined shopfront on the Kali Strata steps. This must have been quite a fancy business in its heyday as there are fragments of quite elaborate plaster and wrought iron still visible.

Wild lupins and poppies in the Pedi valley.

Irises and a prickly pear.

One of my cockerels enjoying the feel of freshly sieved soil between his claws.  These stones were dumped on our terraces when the Agia Marina river burst its banks during the winter and we are having to sieve all the stones out of the soil again before we can plant anything.

It is Good Friday in Greece.  Many people have been fasting scrupulously this week and even the gyros bar is only serving taramasalata (cod roe dip) and salads.  Meat isn't back on the menu until Sunday when the Resurrection is celebrated with traditional spit roast lamb and goat. No wine today.  No oil in cooking.  Good Friday is observed very seriously and there should be no manual labour.  Most shops are closed apart from those selling essential foods and people spend a lot of time in church.

Tonight there will be processions of the Epitaphi which represent Christ's body through the streets of Symi, a very dramatic event with much chanting and many explosions to keep evil spirits at bay. The different parishes have their own processions and there is an element of competition as to who produces the most beautifully decorated Epitaph.

Have a good weekend and Kalo Pasca!

Regards,
Adriana

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