Symi has some last minute deals!

Spam always amuses me. Not the meat product, nor even the Monty Python song, but the random emails that come in. There are a couple dissected and ridiculed in ‘Symi, Stuff & Nonsense’, as you may see later this year. Today though it’s the turn of Booking.com to wheedle its way into my inbox.

‘James, Symi has some last minute deals!’ (The exclamation mark is all important; you can hear the joy in the email’s voice.) Yes, well, I am sure there are some lovely last-minute deals on Symi, but I don’t actually need them as I live here. But what else do you have on offer? Symi from £45.00 per night – okay but I work in Euros. How about £49.00 for a night in Rhodes? To which I answer, Again? I can, apparently, stay in Ixia for £62.00, though it is not explained to me why I should. I am offered a ‘genius’ deal (how do they know I’m a genius?) for a night in London for £27.00 which is very generous, but it will cost me at least €600.00 to get there, and probably take three days what with boats and things. Or maybe Novi Sad?

Novi Sad is in Serbia, as I am sure you know, and it’s only £14.00 per night at whatever property they have me lined up for. I think I went through or near it on a train (the journey is also in the new book out later this year) but have no huge desire to go there. Oh, I just scrolled down and there’s more: “Vienna, Sibiu, Bucharest, show me more, show me more!” that’s blazoned across the bottom of the email as if the backing singers from ‘Grease’ have joined the celebrations with my ‘Last minute deals (exclamation mark)’ email.

I don’t know. I’ve been to those places already – which is why they get flagged up. Well, most of them. You’d have thought something as advanced as the alligator-rhythm, or whatever this called – algorithm, that’s it – that programmers programme into these sites would be able to think outside the box a bit. I mean…

‘Hey, Walt! Lets’ see where this guy has been to before and suggest he goes there again!’

‘No, Hank! Let’s think of some way we can suggest places he wants to go to! He clearly likes travelling but has no budget! He’s more likely to book somewhere new!’

‘Good idea! Say! How about Symi? He’d love that!’

Exclamation mark.

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Walk, Author Interview, Newsletter

Here are some photos from the weekend. It was a weekend packed with variety: an early walk to Nimborio and back, some time at home, a dinner party, a 10^th birthday party and a concert in the village square. I’ll give you a taster of some of the events and then put up the other photos through the week.

The walk to Nimborio, by the way, works out like this: From the village square, down the Kali Strata and up the slope at the back of the town square, across the top (lovely countryside walk) and to the church of St George, down the donkey track and around the bay: two miles. Then, from the centre of the bay at the back near the Basilica and the Roman mosaics, along the seafront road and down to Nos beach, around the boat yard and into Yialos, another two miles. After a coffee at Eva’s café, we walked back up the Kali Strata to home.

Some of the photos were taken by me and some by Neil but we were sharing the same camera, and I can’t remember who took what.

On a completely different subject, if you’re interested in reading author interviews, I have an interview with Isobel Starling over on the author blog. Click here. While you are there, you might want to sign-up to my newsletter. I am not in the habit of sending any out, but I’m interested to see if the system works. I will get around to sending author updates when I have some news, but it won’t be one of those twice a day emails you never read, more like twice per year. Your info doesn’t get shared with anyone, of course, but you can stay in touch with any news I send out regarding price reductions, new titles and all that jazz. Mind you, I usually talk about them here anyway… but still. I’d still be interested to see if the system works and I should receive a notification when someone joins the mailing list. It’s a new (to me) advertising tool I am playing with.

That’s it for today – have a good one!

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Symi to Rhodes: update

I am writing today’s post on Saturday. I usually prepare Monday’s on a Sunday but we are aiming to get up early and walk to Nimborio on Sunday morning, so I thought I should put something up and ready today. It’s only a few updates anyway.

I was talking about the boats from Rhodes to Symi the other day, and how to book tickets on line. Well, Andy from the Symi Visitor Travel blog I mentioned contacted me with a clarification. Thank you for that, and here it is:

“Dodekanisos Seaways on line bookings can be converted into real tickets at any of their offices/agencies, they just find your booking on the computer system and print the tickets. This includes the hut at Akandia, but if for some bizarre reason you wanted to collect a Rhodes-Panormitis ticket while you’re on Samos, you could. The days of “only on the island, you’re travelling from” are long gone, thank goodness. The Sea Dreams Sunday night service has been running since early July and runs to the end of September. There is no Saturday night service – this appeared on one timetable draft, but never happened.

You can book Rhodes-Panormitis and Panormitis-Symi as separate tickets. The fare for Panormitis-Symi is €0.00, and the fare from Rhodes – Symi is the same regardless of which port you get to first. Or just book and pay for Panormitis and ask for the leg to Yialos when you collect the tickets, which you’ll have to do before leaving Rhodes for both legs anyway, as there’s no ticket office/agency at Panormitis. Panagia Skiadeni operates non-stop Rhodes-Yialos on both Tuesdays and Thursdays, the days when there’s no 08:30 catamaran from Rhodes.”

Today’s photos, by the way, were taken on Friday when we popped into Yialos to see if there was any post, stopped for a bite to eat and had a bit of a day off. There were many people waiting for the taxi boats, having the photos taken at the anchors and milling about. Apparently it has been very busy in Yialos with the Poseidon’s day trips being popular and often nearly full. Book early!

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Symi Saturday Photos

Here are a few recent photos that Neil took. This weekend I shall be working on edits for ‘Symi, Stuff & Nonsense’ most of the time while looking forward to a barbeque, and godson Harry’s 10^th birthday on Sunday. Have a good weekend.

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Rhodes to Symi: Tips

I was making arrangements for visitors the other day and thought I might impart some useful tips. At least, I hope they are helpful. They should be as long as a) you don’t already know them and b) I get them right. I shall cover myself by suggesting that, if in doubt, you contact someone else, and, in particular, look at the very useful Symi Visitor Travel Blog where Andy posts up-to-date travel advice for people coming to Rhodes/Symi.

It used to be, that if you were coming on the Panagia Skiadeni, with Dodecanese Seaways, you could not book your tickets online. I just looked into this as we have family coming over and they are arriving on a Wednesday night in Rhodes and need to get the only Thursday boat, the Panagia, the next morning. This leaves Rhodes at 9.30 and gets into Symi at 11.00 – on this day, on other days it goes via Panormitis. I went through the booking system at www.12ne.gr (Dodecanese Seaways) and found that if you are coming directly to Symi on Thursday, you can book the tickets online. If you are going via Panormitis on another day with this boat, you have to buy separate journeys. Rhodes – Panormitis and then Panormitis – Symi, and you can do that online. Or so I was told.

The booking system is easy. You look for your date/sailings and then click on ‘Book’. From there on it’s straightforward. Watch out for the part later on where you put in your address, and it asks how you want your tickets delivered. ‘Courier’ might not work if you only have a couple of days before your journey and live outside of Greece. You can, instead, opt for ‘Agency’, and there’s another link to show you which agency to collect them from, depending on which Greek island you are arriving on. I did notice on the list that it said Dodecanese Seaways agency at Kolona, which is where the catamarans go from, but I assume, if it’s the Panagia you’re on, you get them from the booth by the boat at Akandia harbour, as that’s where the boat leaves from. I’ll check that when I can (unless anyone wants to confirm it for me meanwhile).

Another tip I checked out was your meet and greet. I am talking about people coming independently here, not with a travel firm who arrange your transfers. We have guests coming this way and staying at a Symi property they found through Booking.com. As I’d organized this, I was able to log in to that site and use the ‘contact accommodation’ function under my booking. This sends an email to your place; I let them know what time ‘I’ would be arriving. This should mean that your accommodation owner/rep (if they have arranged your pick-up, and not all do; another thing to check out when booking) should be there waiting for you.

So, the usual rules apply: Check your boat connections before you book your flights as there are usually only early morning sailings from Rhodes and these are difficult to tie in with aeroplane landings; anything past 7.30 a.m. landing in Rhodes and you won’t get the boat. Unless it’s a Wednesday or Friday in which case you have the afternoon and evening Blue Star. And, I have noticed, a Sunday Sea Dreams sailing which I know nothing about, I’ve just seen it coming in on a Sunday. That might be worth exploring. Or was it a Saturday? As I said, check the websites and be sure.

There, I hope that was helpful.

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