The best view of Yialos

Often, when I’m hanging out in the square, a passing visitor will ask where to find the best view of Yialos. These are usually day-trippers or yachties who have made it up to the village out of curiosity but who don’t have much time to go searching. Many of them are drawn up here to visit ‘the church’, and we always ask ‘which one’ as there are something like 13 parish churches in the village and many more chapels. There are three within the Castro grounds alone. Or is it four? Anyway… With little time, I often suggest they follow the lane towards Lemonitisa because a) it’s easy to find, b) it offers views of the harbour, and c) you can also see the church with the dome that more than likely enticed the visitors up to the village. It’s not open, by the way, not unless there’s a service taking place, but it does offer views of its own.

So, from the top of the Kali Strata, you go into the village square which, being higher than the path you’re on may not look like the village square… You go up the steps and double back into it, or walk alongside the long white wall and take the first steps on the left at the end… Or just ask someone. Whichever way, you then exit the square via the only road, making sure the badly cracked ruin on your left doesn’t fall on your head. Follow the path around the S bend and keep going. It’s a slope, but apart from the corner, not a bad one and the path itself gives you lovely views as it’s overhung with trees.

Pass the bins (not the best landmark but an unmissable one), say hello to the chickens, cats and goats, and keep going. After a little while, you’ll come to another bend where the road is fenced on one side. There’s your view. From there, you can see the back of the harbour, the new amphitheatre being built and the hills that surround Yialos. While on that path, you can also stop and look between the trees to see down to Yialos, and if you follow the sloping path towards the sea, you should find the church. If you keep going on the road, though, around that corner, you’ll get a good view of the back of the village, and if you keep going, past more bins, past another church, straight on into the stone-paved lane to the steps at the very end, and turn right… (phew), you can then walk back down the Kataractis. Whichever way you go, you’ll get a view.

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News from the petting zoo

There has been a massive yacht in the harbour for a couple of days. A three-masted, modern thing that, apparently, costs €44,000 per week to hire, or something similar. I guess you have to pay for fuel and food on top of that, plus staff tips, so it’s not something we’re likely to be using in the near future. Neil took a snap of it from the balcony the other day, and others were doing the rounds on Fakebook.

I managed a shot of it leaving on Sunday night, from a distance.

I saw a couple of other usual sights on a walk on Monday morning. There must have been a party or wedding, baptism or other celebration up towards the top of the village as the road was paved with gold. Well, gold confetti and balloons.

There were also several goats rummaging around in ruins climbing trees and on roofs and causing a bit of a racket. There are always goats around somewhere. Our lane is becoming quite the petting zoo these days. There are goats up the lane wandering free, the bin cats of course and their scraggy kittens, and also the chickens with their chicks. They were hiding behind a bin when I went past, so I couldn’t get a photo, but I could hear them, and I saw them the other day when I didn’t have the camera with me. Obviously, the cats aren’t interested in eating them, and the chickens and their chicks are not bothered by the cats, so everyone seems to be getting along quite nicely. Spot the goat (that’s not his name, as far as I know).

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A Monday morning ramble

As you know, I’m not going out and about much apart from the occasional walk up to the hill in the morning, the not so occasional visits to the bar in the late afternoon after work, and the necessary trips to Yialos, which tend to be early in the day before the day boats arrive. I was down there on Saturday, early, to collect a package from the bookshop. It turned out to be some music I had ordered less than a week ago. Not bad as it came from England. I’d ordered a copy of Für Elise and Your favourite 50 best classical easy things or similar, for ‘Pianino’, my little piano who I am helping learn to play. (Aka Mozart because, let’s face it, he is rather good.) In the afternoon, I spent about an hour working through the book and going over some of the pieces I used to be able to play about 30 years ago. It’s amazing what your fingers remember, though my technique is somewhat out of the window these days, and needs a complete overhaul. I found I was able to play pieces like Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata reasonable well (up to a point) because I’d learnt to play them when I was in my early 20s, but when I then had a go at something easier from the new book, I was all over the place. I should spend more of my home time at the keyboard doing my scales and Hannon exercises, but then I have so many books to read, let alone the ones I want to write, and then there’s always the distraction of Glee and other Netflix attractions, plus a couple of series of How the Victorians Built Britain and others I’m watching for research.

Anyway… Observations from being out and about on Symi of late. There has been some fun at the bar, where social distancing and safety are the names of the games. Note the rubber glove in the photo below. Before this Yiannis had been serving wine on a shovel – a good-humoured prank, you understand, he and his co-worker, Neil, wear their masks as required, and he’s forever spraying down the chair arms and tables before and after punters, and there is hand-san available on your way to and from the restrooms. The police have been doing their rounds, checking that the bars and tavernas are adhering to the rules.

We had lunch at the Trawler on Saturday, and as it was early, we were the first people to arrive. There was lots of distance between the tables, and yet… The next couple in took the table two away from us, the next party took the one beside us across the wide gap, and the third lot took the table between us and the first, so although there were about 15 other tables available, we ended up in a line of four. Strange how humans do this. It’s like when you’re in the cinema for a wet Wednesday matinee, and there are only ten people in, but they all come and sit in front of you, or just behind as if people can’t exist unless in a group.

But work goes on everywhere, businesses are doing their best to survive, and there are some intrepid tourists about, some behaving better than others, and life ticks along. I think a lot of people are waiting to see what happens in September when the island is popular with northern Europeans. I get the impression businesses are hoping they will have a typical September, though, sadly, I doubt it will be anything like normal nor enough to secure people’s livelihoods and see them through the winter.

On which note, I should stop rambling and get on with one of my projects. There is a Beethoven beast on the piano that needs taming, and it’s not as if I don’t have time to work on it.

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Random…

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Pleasant

It was a pleasant morning for a walk yesterday, the temperature being 28 degrees at 7.30 as opposed to the 34 + it has been of late. I wandered up the side of the mountain while Neil took off to Nimborio and back.

There was something of a surprise the other day as many people with Greek mobile phones received an alert from the government. The message comes with an unmissable sound, and we don’t hear it very often, so at first, it was a shock. All it was telling us to do was stay safe on the way home from holidays, which was a bit late in my case as I did that months ago, but I reckon it meant the Panagia weekend. I also wondered if it was to prove that Greece is taking the pandemic more seriously than, say, the yUK where things got out of control, and where, rather superciliously, they are now threatening to put Greece on their list. That’s the list of countries you have to quarantine after you’ve come back from. (There has to be a better way to write that, but I can’t think of it right now.) Who knows? Anyway, apart from a rise in cases caused by too many people gathering where they shouldn’t be, an influx of people from abroad and others generally flouting the rules, Greece is still managing things well.

We’ve had day boats and ferries, taxi boats are going out, round the island trips are taking place, I’m sure I saw the Diagoras the other day. The busses are also running their trips to Panormitis, so apart from very few visitors, things are running normally. Masks and distance are the rules. Masks when inside any shop or business (well, any building, really apart from your own home), and distance at all times. It’s not so bad now as people can sit outside cafes in the summer, right up until December sometimes, but when the dark and cold months come, wearing a mask inside while taking your coffee is going to be interesting. Let’s see how many local businesses and people stick to that one, as there are several who are currently not following the rules.

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