One way up the Kali Strata
There’s more than one way to skin a cat, they say, and I have to wonder who those nasty people are who discovered this fact. But, putting that aside, there’s also more than one way to climb from Yialos to Horio, on Symi. They all involve steps and I’ve mentioned a few of them before on the blog, but here’s another way that many of you will already know. If you do, share this post with others who may not.
When we lived high up in the village, and worked down in Yialos, I would set of to work first, as I started an hour before Neil did. This went on, day after day, every day for seven months and so, rather than head through the main village path and down the main Kali Strata, I would often go via this route (coming along in a moment) so that my journey to work would be varied, and also offer me great views – just to remind me why I was doing this commute every day, seven days a week, for seven months. It’s the route past the high school down the slope and via what are known as ‘the lazy steps.’ Wrongly known, I am told, because the ‘lazy steps’ were further along the harbour and so called because that’s where non-workers would go to rest out of the sun, or something.
People think they are called this as they are easier. Here’s a tip: there is no easy way to walk up from the harbour to the village. I find the main road is the gentlest slope, though the path does give you some foot massage due to its pointed paving rocks, and I find the main steps are the easiest for shade and pausing places, but the way they zigzag does take you across and to the left and then back to the right again, so it’s not the most direct. Here’s another way of coming up and it is the way I used to head down, in reverse. (It’s also not direct.)
Pass the taxi rank and Pandalis restaurant and the bus stop, and then you will see the slope heading up where the Sea Dreams day boat comes in. This is the start of the non-lazy ‘lazy steps’ and it’s a slope to start with. It zigzags a couple of times before you then have a choice of turning right to the main Kali Strata or heading up a steep set of steps towards the school. These come with a handrail, which is, well, handy. Head up there and turn right. Here’s another tip: the first step here is very high on the right, but there’s a helping-foot step on the left which makes it easier to hoist your leg up and plonk it down, usually accompanied by a big sigh, and then, as they say, you carry on carrying on up.
You will pass the Women’s Association building and then the high school, with the bins on one side. (You also pass the small car park area through which you can walk to find the road to Haritomeni Taverna overlooking the harbour.) Carry on up the slope past the school and you reach what is still known as the Kali Strata Bar corner, or viewpoint – though the bar has now gone. Here you can join the main Kali Strata and take the final ascent on the north face, or you can turn left and head up to the ‘main’ road and then double back. Once you’re up those steps you are, strangely, heading downhill which by then is a relief. This road will take you past the Windmill Restaurant and the hotels and bring you out at Georgio’s Taverna, which is where the other, north face, route will also bring you.
From there it’s only a few more steps to the village square where you are home and dry, or home and wet by that point if it’s the summer. Like I said, there are loads of other ways to get up to the village and the easiest way is to take a taxi or a bus. We’d missed both on Wednesday after stopping for a beer at Pacho’s and chatting to Hugo, but we did get a lunch invitation out of it and the exercise did someone some good I am sure.
So, next time on Symi, try the non-lazy, lazy steps as it’s just one way up the Kali Strata.
