Last 24 Hours on Symi

Slept for about 4 of our last 24 hours on Symi. Yesterday morning saw us walking down from Sevasti Studios to catch the bus. One thing about staying in the Chorio is that up is obligatory - these steps were the shortest way back!

Another view of Symi…

On the way down the hill, saw this interesting mannequin on a balcony, draped with a Greek flag.

Roadside concrete bollards.

It's the time of year when there are lots of spiky, thistle-like plants, making long trousers essential for walking through countryside. In 40ºC+ temperatures not an option I'd favour.

The bus arriving at the kiosk. We had walked down just in case it did not come up to the stop near Sevasti Studios - of course it did!

We again spent the day on St Nick's beach - managed over 7 hours of swimming, reading, hanging out and generally being tourists. It was heaven! As we left to catch the last taxi-boat back to Pedi, stopped to read this.

Waited for the bus down at Pedi - and waited. After all my enthusiastic words yesterday about their integrated transport system, eventually someone came out and told us that the bus had broken down and might be fixed by today. We had planned to get the bus down to Yialos and then back up to the Chorio, so our plans were in disarray. Instead we started walking up the hot road to Chorio, passing this sign for the newly opened pharmacy up the hill. Lots of these signs have appeared since we were on Symi in May - great not to have to go to Yialos for stuff if you're in the village.

On the way saw more thistle-type plants, including this one in flower. Stuck my thumb out for a lift, and a woman with her children who lives close to Sevasti very kindly stopped and gave us a lift all the way up the hill - very much appreciated.

After supper and getting our case packed, we went down to the Sunrise Cafe with all our remaining euros (we had planned to get some more cash out in Yialos…). Throwing ourselves on Kevin and Claudia's mercy, we put down the grand total of 6.91 Euros and asked for as much wine as that would buy! George and I again played some guitar, and I managed to murder the vocals for "Jumping Jack Flash" (well somebody had to!). Left about 1 and got to sleep by 2 o'clock. The alarm went off at 5.45 and we were out by the "bus stop" by 6.30 from where we were picked up to be whisked down to the port. By this time, the sun had properly risen, promising another hot day on Symi.

 Down in Yialos, we had time to do a bit of yacht gazing.

A direct piece of signage - and, by the pointed sticks,  I guess they also wanted no cats using the soil as their toilet.

The Dodecanese Express ready and waiting to whisk us away back over to Rhodes.

One last look back over the harbour for this trip. We will be back!

Two Symi Dreamers also en route for the boat - off for a day trip to Kastellorizo with James' Mum and friend Sarah. Read all about it in the next day or two on the excellent Symi Dream blog.

Have written this, struggling with the s--l--o--w WiFi in the Plaza Hotel, where we have a room so that we can address some of our sleep deficit before accumulating some more (our flight back to the UK is at 4 am tomorrow morning…). More on our time in Rhodes in tomorrow's (possibly short) blog post.


This day a year ago I had a bit of a cold, it had rained and I had been playing with creating vignettes - this one of Charlcombe Valley.