Citrus and Cyclamens - Monday Postcards from Symi

Ripe lemons in my garden.  Only one of the half a dozen lemon trees has given us any fruit this year.  

Orange blossom.

The tangerines on this tree are usually very bitter but after so much rain this winter perhaps this year they will be sweeter.

Some of the cyclamens survived the big storm in November. The main areas where cyclamens grow in my garden are buried under tons of rubble so they will have to bide their time.

It has been wet with relatively mild temperatures so the almond trees are very confused.  The ones that didn't die of drought are muddling along with a mixture of leaves and flowers all at once. Yes, people, climate change is definitely a thing on Symi.

Dainty surprises among the muddy litter in the verges.

Proud mother and her new lamb

The View from Symi Visitor Accommodation this wet Monday

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Snow on Attaviros, Rhodes, January 2017

A first glimpse of the mountain, from a field near Kamiros Skala.

Heading inland towards the village of Kritinia from Kamiros Skala.

No, it is not the Alps!  Attaviros, the highest peak on Rhodes.

Bottleneck at the turn off to the mountain road.

Those who had successfully made it to the top were flaunting snow men on their bonnets as trophies for the trip back down.

All sorts of unlikely vehicles made it up to the top. Basically anything with 4 wheels, including one fellow on a quad bike who was covered in mud from top to toe.  As the road is very narrow with a drainage ditch  on the mountain side and a sheer drop on the other vehicles were having to inch past each other and there was much cautious reversing to whatever scraps of verge there might be.

Suddenly we popped out into the forest reserve with woods on both sides. There were a lot of frozen-looking goats but my attempts at photographing them from a moving vehicle were unsuccessful.

Then we started to climb again. By now it was a dirt road with lots of slush and mud everywhere.  

Looking down in the gathering dusk.

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Some of the wind turbines on the top of Attaviros.

It is not often that there is such sustained snow on Rhodes and kids of all ages were out there, enjoying this novel experience.

A Siberian weather system plunged down into Greece over the weekend, bringing snow to parts of Greece that seldom if ever see the white stuff.  We had to go over to Rhodes on business and took advantage of the Blue Star's new Sunday/Monday route to go over and see for ourselves.

We arrived in Rhodes at midday, checked into the Best Western Plaza and then drove down to Kamiros Skala, the small port that serves Halki, for lunch, before heading up into the mountains on our search for snow.  As you can see, there was quite a lot of it!

More snow fell on Rhodes on Sunday night and on Monday the authorities closed the access road, possibly because they were still digging out Smart cars and other unsuitable vehicles from the mountain top!

Monday morning was free for our business and we then caught the Blue Star again at 4 p.m, arriving back in Symi just after 5 p.m.  We hope that the Blue Star keeps this up through the summer as we have not had an afternoon connection from  Rhodes to Symi on a Monday for many years and it will be a big boost to tourism in the area.

The weather has warmed up very slightly with steady rain all day. The forecast for the rest of the week alternates rain with dry spells and some fairly lowly temperatures, albeit getting up into double digits during the day.

Have a good week.

Regards,
Adriana

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Views From the Top

The water boat and the trading caique, tucked up in Pedi to ride out the storms.

Looking across from Periotissa, the church and carpark right at the top edge of Chorio, the old town, yesterday.  It is very cold and very clear at the moment.  On the left of the photograph you can see part of the Kastro, the old castle mount that was the focal point of the original Chorio settlement which now sprawls across the surrounding slopes and across to the windmills on the right.  You can see part of the big red roof of the new undercover sports facility on the right. That is the island of Nimos in the middle with the  hills of the Datca peninsular in the background.

Looking towards Datca from the same vantage point.  If you look carefully you can see a wind farm on the right. The hills in the far distance are actually the other side of Bodrum bay.  The tongue of water in the foreground is part of Nimborio bay, where the Symi fish farm used to be.

Meanwhile, down in the Pedi valley the summer daisies are starting to flower.

Weeds among the ruins in the top of Chorio.  There are also a couple  of cats lurking in the vegetation.  Those black plastic pipes duct the water from the main reservoirs down to the cisterns of the individual houses.

I wonder what happened to the rest of this door.

A very empty Yialos.

Symi sunflowers.

It is bitterly cold here at the moment.  Strong northerly winds have been blowing since Friday and temperatures are only just above freezing. There was ice on the puddles early this morning and the temperature in my garden at 9 this morning was still minus 3 degrees centigrade.  Temperatures are expected to rise slightly later in the week as the wind drops but at the moment it is certainly finger-numbing. There has been heavy snowfall on the mountains in Turkey which can be seen from right at the top of the island.

Unfortunately there is another 48 hour ferry strike scheduled for this week which will disrupt the Blue Star.  If it follows the same program as last week, what will happen is the Blue Star will come through as usual on Wednesday morning and then sit out the strike in Rhodes, leaving Rhodes and coming through Symi again late on Friday night.  Still on the subject of ferries, the Dodecanese Seaways timetable has been updated to the end of March which is effectively the end of winter.  Does this mean that the end is in sight?  We certainly hope so as we are now receiving lots of emails from people wanting to book their summer holidays.

Have a warm dry weekend.

Regards,
Adriana

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