Symi Festival events

A couple of posters for you today, in case you’re heading this way soon or reading this here. Well, not here-here in my office, but somewhere close by.

The Symi International Film Festival runs within and as part of the Symi Festival, and this is its second year. It begins on the 17^th September and runs for the week showing films selected from 150 submitted. It looks like at least 35 are being screened, some shorts, some features, plus a couple of others at an event in the cultural centre, which is detailed on the other poster.

The films at the Film Festival will be shown at the open-air cinema at the sports centre in Horio. If you’re not sure where this is… Take the bus from Yialos or Pedi to the bus stop at Campos in Horio, and then walk a little way along the road as if you were heading out of the village and up the hill. It’s the big red building on your left. Go down the slope and around to the left, you’ll see it when you get there. It’s outside, and there are facilities.

And the other event started yesterday in the cultural centre in Yialos. This is an art exhibition which is open until 9^th September. Within that, two films are being screened, one on 30^th August and the other on 6^th September, both starting at 20.00. The details are on the posters here which should enlarge if you click them.

If you’re not sure where the cultural centre is, it’s in the lane that runs around from Bella Napoli to the right and is on the left along that street. The big double doors will be open anyway, so you can’t miss it.

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Symi Saturday Photos

Here are a few more from the past few days, including one of the back of Michaelis’ delivery truck. Our new cooker arrived yesterday sharing the ride with, among other things, an anchor. The evening photos were taken in Yialos on Thursday night coming back from a lovely dinner in Harani. Have a good weekend.

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Yialos Photos

As today, for me, is all about filling out forms, dealing with emails, pretending to tidy the house and preparing for dinner in Harani, I’m not staying around for long. I’m also recovering from an unexpected day on Wednesday. We popped down to Yialos so that Neil could do some paperwork at the bank, and it took longer than we expected, but it was worth waiting for. The result was that we decided to have lunch down there and then walk up afterwards in time for him to do his shift at the bar. So, today’s blog is mainly photos taken yesterday in the harbour, and tomorrow’s will probably be the rest of the photos I have taken this week that I’ve not shown you yet. By the way, check Andy’s travel blog (link on the right) for the latest news on the ANES boat, the Sebeco, and it’s timetable as I believe that’s about to change or end, and it may affect your travel plans if you’re coming over soon.

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To Vrisi and back

Today we are going for another walk. This time, it’s three-thirty in the afternoon, at least 32 degrees and we’re heading uphill for two miles before turning around and heading down again. I was in the mood yesterday, so I put on my shoes and left the house, weaving through the back lanes of the village to the road.

I came out by Lavinia Studios, the place I stayed at on my first visit to Symi in 1996. Sadly, they now look a bit delipidated, and I don’t think they’ve been in use for a while. When I was there, there was no building right in front of them so there was an uninterrupted view down to Pedi. Anyway, past there and up the hill past the cantina to the Agia Marina church and cemetery. Past that to the bridge and the yappy dog (absent) and onto the concrete road that winds up to To Vrisi, as it’s known locally. It means ‘the tap’ because there is a natural spring beneath and you can refill your water bottles when you get there.

The thing with this route is that is winds in and out of the folds of the hill. It’s a bit like when you come back from the other Again Marina (the beach with the island) over the top to the windmills. You keep thinking, ‘one more ridge,’ only to find another one beyond it. So it can be with the folds of the hills if you’ve not done the route before, but it’s not too long. There’s not a lot of shade, depending on the time of day, so take a hat and water. I ambled up at a decent pace arriving 35 minutes after I left home, and paused in the churchyard for a few minutes and half a bottle of water before heading back down again.

Form up there, you get a great view down over the Pedi valley, the football pitch (still in need of repair), the bay, the opposite hill, the village and windmills. The route back is the same and much easier. There was also a breeze on the way back which helped dry me off. Today (Wednesday) I have to go to the post office, so that’s my walk for the day. If you’re wondering why I am suddenly doing all this, it’s for two reasons. Late next year we’re going to our son’s wedding in Scotland, and I will have to look good in a kilt, and the following year we’re aiming to go to New Zealand to see Mr Box and family. (See my trip to England posts from late July/early August for an explanation of Mr Box.) He has challenged me to try surfing, and if the thought of me in a kilt is unsettling, you should try thinking of me in a wetsuit.

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Coming back from Nimborio

As I was saying yesterday, we tend to take the coast road back from Nimborio to Yialos, so we have a chance to look at the sea and the coves on the way around. There’s not very much shade, although there are now seats (concrete) to rest on and some are under the few trees. It is possible, at certain times of the day, to catch the train back as it runs nearly to Nimborio, but now it has only one carriage, you might find it full, so I wouldn’t rely on it.

As I understand it, Nimborio was one Emborios, the ‘trading place’, roughly translated. The word εμπόριο means trade or commerce, and εμπόρος is a merchant. The area was important in Roman times as the centre of island trade, and there are the remains of a Roman mosaic still to be seen at the back of the bay beside the church.

Meanwhile, on Symi, the festival is still in full swing. There was a very popular concert on Monday night with a famous singer, great excitement, a helicopter arrival and a heap of boats in the bay and crowding the harbour. (I, as usual, was in bed before it started and up only a few hours after it finished.) We have many French and Italian visitors here right now, plus many Greek visitors from the mainland, and soon the northern Europeans will return for their favourite month of September. We have visitors of our own arriving in the next couple of weeks, so we are looking forward to that, and then, before we know it, things will be quieting down for the winter again… already.

Here are two more photos from our walk.

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