Simply Beautiful

Pedi Bay 7 a.m.

The view from Symi Visitor Accommodation - 8 a.m.

Yialos 7.15 a.m.

Who are you looking at?

In need of some tender loving care. While the ground floor of this building in Yialos houses the Lotto Shop, upstairs has been boarded up and neglected for many years.

A building with many numbers.  Apart from its date of construction, the various other numbers were attempts by various administrations - probably Italian and British rather than Ottoman Turks - to work out who owned what and register the buildings on Symi.  More recent endeavours with the land registry are responsible for the spray painted names and phone numbers to be seen on many ruins and seemingly abandoned properties in Chorio.

Early morning shadow play on the Kali Strata.  

This really is wrought iron work - heated in a forge and beaten into shape and then assembled with rivets.

Steps to the upper storey of a neglected building on the Kali Strata. Symiot houses are not large and stair cases take up a lot of space. This solid stone stair case is very steep to minimise loss of space and is really just a stone version of the open tread wooden ladder staircases that are used in many houses to connect the various levels.  The other option is to take the stairs up the outside of the house.

There are lots of Turkish boats and gulets in Symi at the moment as it is Eid al Fitr, the holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan and Symi is popular destination.   As you can see from the photographs, the anchorage at Pedi Bay and the harbour, Yialos, are very crowded and untangling fouled anchors is part and parcel of sailing life at this time of the year.

Symi is a very beautiful Greek island with its natural amphitheatre harbour, sheer cliffs running down to the sea and pretty pastel coloured neo classical houses rising from the water's edge up to the Kastro and sprawling up the lower reaches of the Vigla, the 700 metre peak that also provides a home to Symi's communications antennae.  It is not, however, a luxury destination and never will be.  A heritage site, Symi's architecture is protected and all development and restoration is closely monitored. The precipitous landscape, combined with the island's shortage of natural water, means that there are no swimming pools or resort hotels.  The architecture is lovely but it is also idiosyncratic and defies many Western concepts of health, safety and bourgeois comfort with ladder staircases, steep steps and other quirks.  The Symiots are a hardy people, shaped by centuries of living in what are naturally very inhospitable conditions.  Building these beautiful houses was an incredible feat in a landscape where nothing is flat and everything had to be carried by people and donkeys up and down cliffs and hillsides.  Even now very few places have convenient or close vehicle access and the motor road has to zigzag up the slopes and wind round mountain sides to connect Yialos, Chorio, Pedi, Xisos and Panormitis.  If you are looking for a plush resort with swimming pools and landscaped lawns, Symi is not for you.  If you appreciate something that is simply beautiful and authentic, you may find yourself joining the hundreds of people who have been visiting Symi every year for decades.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana

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Live Like a Greek Islander

Unique wrought iron work on the harbour front.  This building belongs to Panormitis monastery and currently houses a tourist shop specialising in Greek products.

The view from my office window.  Louis Lines comes in every Thursday morning. This week it brought a delegation from the Church of Cyprus who went round to Panormitis Monastery to meet with the Metropolitan. 

One never knows what one is going to see in Yialos. This intriguing and controversial vessel is 'Guilty', a floating work of art by Jeff Koons. The paintwork is inspired by wartime 'dazzle' camouflage. For more information, please click on the link.

A block away from the glamour of millionaire toys, these two elderly lions live above a traditional harbour taverna and could probably tell you a lot of stories if they could speak.

This old mansion on the Kali Strata has had a recent revamp.  Rag rugs are very much a part of the local heritage and there is still at least one old loom that I know of that is used to convert old garments into useful rugs.

A tough dandelion surviving on who knows what moisture between the flag stones near the top of the Kali Strata.

Yes, that donkey IS tethered to the car wheel.  It doesn't look as though the car has moved for some time as the back wheels appear to be flat, but the donkey is certainly still active - and vocal!

Although it is very hot we have quite a strong wind today and the water taxis are confined to the harbour for the day.  Many parts of Greece have a fire warning for today and the weekend as the combination of tinder dry countryside, limited water supplies and brisk breezes can be a recipe for disaster.  Devastating fires are a huge problem in Greece in the summer, not helped by the selfishness of arsonists.  This is why camping is illegal in Greece outside of designated areas.  We have never had a serious fire on Symi but the fear is always there, particularly as Symi is so desperately short of water and does not really have the resources to cope in such an event. The town hall has a list of all those islanders with pick up trucks that can transport water drums and this is how the fire was put out 10 or so years ago when a lorry went over a bend in the road above the Pedi Valley but that would not be much help if a fire started up in the forests on the top of the island that are inaccessible by road.

Summer water rationing has been implemented and we have been told that Chorio will receive water for a few hours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings so that householders can put water in their cisterns to tide them over the days in between.  Down in the harbour we have had water shortages most mornings for a few hours but this is not affecting the cafes and restaurants around the front.  Symi has always been synonymous with water shortages as the island has no natural water supply and in the days before the water ships and the small desalination plant households were entirely dependent on harvesting the winter rains from their roofs and storing the water in big cisterns under the houses.  When I first came here twenty years ago each neighbourhood received water for one hour per week and how much you got depended on the rate of flow, regulated according to how much water was available.

Interestingly many of Symi's regular visitors first discovered the island in those days, when water was scarce, air conditioning unheard of and power cuts frequent but still fell in love with the island regardless and continue to come back year after year. Which goes to show that it is not necessarily creature comforts that make a holiday destination special.  Symi is a truly authentic Greek island experience.  Tourists and locals alike share the same joys and the same discomforts, they climb the same steps, eat in the same tavernas, shop in the same shops,  ride in the same bus.  If you want to live like a Greek islander, then Symi is the place to come!

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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Hot Round the Clock

 A procession of gulets leaving Yialos and heading back to Datca through the Nimos channel, early on Wednesday morning.

A welcome sight - the watership in Yialos this morning.

When the larger cruise ships come in, they lie off shore and ferry the guests to and fro in the these bright orange life boats.

The upper reaches of the Kali Strata, heading towards the square in Chorio.

It is traditional to sit outside ones house of an evening and watch the passing parade.  Apart from providing an opportunity it catch up on the gossip, it is also considerably cooler than indoors. Air conditioning is still a luxury in most homes here.

An impromptu gate made out of old pallets.  The countryside is drying out fast now.

Cats and cars - getting dustier by the day.  As very few houses on the island have vehicle access and Symi is notoriously short of water car washing is a luxury rather than something routinely done with a bucket, sponge and hosepipe on a Saturday afternoon.

Tomatoes ripening on the Kali Strata.

Mother love on a scooter outside the dentist on the Kataraktis.

The searing temperatures and low humidity of summer strip the trees of their leaves long before autumn comes whistling through the trees in November.

Golden grasses, so dry that they shatter at the touch.

Temperatures continue to rise and Symi is hot round the clock.  July is always the hottest month on Symi. The days are long, the humidity is very low and the rocks just soak up the heat from 6 in the morning until sunset at around half past 8 in the evening, with the result that temperatures are still in the thirties at midnight.  In the big cities like Athens the municipality opens up air conditioned public buildings for people to cool off in.  Here in Symi you will find crowds building up inside Taxas supermarket, mainly in the vicinity of the fruit and vegetable display chillers.  As our air conditioner in the office failed to make it through the winter and all the big fan does is paddle the hot air around we tend to hang out in the supermarket too.  We have pleaded and cajoled with every air con man on the island but they all seem to be up to their eyes in emergency call outs for hotels or have gone fishing.  No doubt it will be repaired come September, when the pressure is off.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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Symi Harbour Views

Every morning as I walk down to work I stop at the corner of the Kali Strata, my first glimpse of Yialos where I work.  There is always something new to look at.  Perhaps the big ferry demonstrating the complicated helmsmanship required to dock in Symi's narrow harbour, or maybe the exotic and glamorous yachts and gulets that arrive overnight.  The pattern changes daily and with every hour of the day. 

There are random glimpses of Yialos visible through narrow gaps between the mansions that line the Kali Strata.  Here we can see a fairly comprehensive assortment of motor yacht designs moored outside the Alpha Bank - and a traditional fishing caique bustling briskly back into the port with the catch of the day.

Looking out of the balcony window a few hours later, the brash motor yachts have departed, to be replaced by this rather elegant gentleman's yacht built in the style of an Edwardian steam yacht and flying a large Turkish ensign.

At midday most of the water taxis are out at the various beaches and the big excursion boats from roads are coming in. That little rubber dinghy with a handful of people in it is making its way back to a yacht at anchor, probably in Harani or Nimborio. 

For those of you who have been following the ups and downs of Symi's water supply, at the moment we are having an up in that the mains water is currently on continuously in all areas and cisterns have been filled wherever possible.  We are all hoping that that is it for water dramas for this year, although past experience has shown that August can be a problematic month, particularly in the harbour when the island is full to capacity and beyond.  Visitors and locals alike have to be conscious that as Symi has no natural water reserves of its own, we have a collective responsibility to avoid waste and make the most of this extremely precious resource.

Have a good weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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