Tilos travel, and books to read
With a thank you to Effrosyni Moschoudi (who told me of this site and who is publishing an interview with me on Monday on her blog http://effrosyniwrites.com/) there is a link below which will take you to a site called Yonndr.com
This is a site where authors can list their books according to the setting of the book. For example, if you use the link you should get to the search result page for Greece, and a list of my five books that are set on Symi. The books don’t have to be factual, they can be novels too. It strikes me that this is a great idea. You’re going on holiday to, where? Let’s say Greece, and you want some inspired reading that’s appropriate to your destination. Simply search and if there are any titles there yet you will find them. Simple. The Greece search result comes up with quite a long list (with mine at the top at the moment) http://yonndr.com/location/greece but you can also just search for ‘Symi’ where you will find, surprise, surprise, my five again. But, as you’ve already read them all, you might want to try the general Greece search and see what else is available.
The photos today were taken the other day. You can see the Blue Star Paros heading in last Wednesday. There was talk of a strike that would affect shipping, but it seems that, on Friday, the boat still came in and was unaffected. I hope it’s the same next Friday or else my trip to Tilos will either be expanded, if I find a way of going early, or shortened, if I can’t go until after any strike (that’s not actually forecast, it’s just me being cautious). Actually, that gives me an idea; I’m just going to look something up…
Okay, let’s assume that you’re on Symi for a long holiday and want to try another island for a quick trip, Tilos in this case. There is a boat from Rhodes to Tilos on Thursday morning, 8.30, the Dodekanisos Pride. And, as you can catch the Panagia Skiedani to Rhodes on Wednesday evening, you could go over then and travel that way. The ‘Spanos’ boats, as they are called locally, tend not to be affected by certain strike actions, so it’s a safer bet if the Blue Star is going to get caught up. You can also come back from Tilos, via Rhodes, on a Thursday and Tuesday, but you will need to stay overnight in Rhodes on either end of the journey. The only direct Symi-Tilos boat is the Friday night one, returning Friday morning of the following week. (The Blue Star.) There may also be other connections from Rhodes that I’ve not searched for.
So, I shall be keeping an eye on the news and, if I have to, will be heading over to Rhodes on Wednesday night ready for an extra day on my writing retreat holiday. But having said that, the strike this week (if it happened) did not affect Symi’s boats at all, so you’ve got no worries there. The Dodekanisos boats are privately run and so should not be affected; don’t let it put you off your planned holiday on Symi. And, before you come, check out http://yonndr.com/ and get some reading organised for during your stay.
