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.
Mainly photos today and fewer words; I’ve had a bit of a busy day and am running out of time while suffering from word blindness. Early morning walk for an hour, 4,000 words typing, emails to send and respond to, an interview for a blog site typed up (another 2,000 words), two chapters of a book to read and make notes on, an hour playing the piano and a blog post all by 5 pm. A bit brain addled. So much so that I just wrote ‘typoed up’ rather than typed up, but that was probably far more appropriate, and I should have left it in. Anyway, off to cook a salad now… I mean chop up a salad… I doesn’t know what I mean. Don’t know… I give up.
The Symi Festival moved up to the village square on Monday night for a concert. We saw some and heard the rest, but I didn’t have my camera with me as we’d been out for drinks at a friend’s house. Meanwhile, there were services and fireworks to celebrate the start of the Assumption events, as yesterday was the feast day of the Assumption, an important Orthodox day in the Greek calendar. The island is busy with visitors coming for the festival and the music and cultural festival as well, and it’s good to see.
Because of our slightly late night (for us) on Monday, I didn’t get out for a walk on Tuesday but did manage to get to work early as I do. So, today will be a collection of images taken the other day around the village and harbour. Neil took these, and that’s a good way to mention his next year’s Symi calendar. You can find the link over on the right, in the column there with book links and other things of interest. When you’re ready to order one (and I will leave the link up all through the rest of the year), simply click across to Lulu. You can change the currency and online shop to one local to you. That will make it cheaper for postage. You’re able to browse the calendar online before you order. You may need to set up an account, which doesn’t take long, and once you have, you can then check the status of your order.
I know some people have bought one already and have commented to Neil on how impressed they are; always good to hear. It might be a bit early for thinking about next year, but if you’re planning on presents for Christmas, for example, then my advice is to shop early, so you don’t have a last minute panic.
Anyway, that’s just a thought on the calendar. I’m off now to get on with something else, and I will see you tomorrow.
Generally: Festival events, preparations for the Assumption Day festivals at various churches on 15th August, busy nights in the village square, a couple of private helicopters coming in and out, many boats, a cruise ship on Saturday, hot weather (34 degrees in the shade in the courtyard), clear skies, live music playing at various venues and lots of happy holiday makers.
At home: finishing draft two of ‘The Witchling’, the follow-up to ‘The Saddling’, about to start on another major project which has a deadline, cleaning windows, cleaning the floors, washing the sofa cushions, watering and feeding the plants, going out to dinner with friends, long walks for Neil, up to To Vrisi at sunrise, a couple of jogs back, rehearsing a dance routine, checking arrangements for the civil partnership next month, sending emails, doing some blog admin, reading, watching television and doing some shopping.
These days, when I am writing, I use a couple of add-ins to my Word programme. Grammarly is one, and I use this one for checking my punctuation and any obvious typos; it doesn’t always catch all of them. The other one I have started using is called ‘Pro Writing Aid’, and you can use both online or have them plugged into your computer; not physically. This one is much more detailed although I find it’s grammar check and punctuation not as good as Grammarly, which is why I use both. It has checks for all kinds of things such as repeated words, clichés, over-used words, as in over-used generally by people, words like all, like, quickly, felt, saw, etc. It also has a full analysis function which I’m now going to run to see what it says about this post so far…
Average sentence length (28.3) but should be between 11 to 18. That’s because my first two sentences up the top are lists. Sentence variety, ok, no long sentences found (which seems to contradict the average sentence length report, average reading age (10.9), other ‘readility’ indexes fine. (I just noticed that word ‘readility’ I think they’ve abbreviated readability.) No house style issues, thank you, and no ‘sticky’ sentences found, but I do score a glue index of 46.3%, and the target is up to 40%, and I haven’t worked out what they mean by glue index. I know now, I just looked it up. Glue words are the most common words in the English language; in, on, was, that, will, be, think, much, have, with, etc. I use a lot of them in the blog.
I have no idea where that bit of writing chat came from, but it has made me realise that I now need to run all the pieces for the forthcoming ‘Symi, Stuff & Nonsense’ through Pro Writer Aid and boy, is it going to have some fun with some of them.
It’s a wonder I get any time to write this blog. Sometimes I don’t, which is why on some days you find only photos, but on other days I have half an hour to ramble on. Example: what’s you’ve just read. The photos today, are from Neil and there are more to come through the week. Have a good one!
