Keeping it simple this morning and sharing five Symi photos, taken by Neil over the past few days. You will see they are page-fitting size again. A few people have said they like this format, so I thought I’d employ it from time to time. If you follow Facebook you might like to follow the Neil Gosling Photography page. You will always find interesting images there and not just from Symi, but from his travels too. So today’s first photo:

You can wend your way up from Yialos by several routes. From the bottom of the Kali Strata, head upwards and then take the first set of side-steps up to your right and zigzag up; it looks daunting, it is at times, but you find great views. And some chickens. Lots of chickens. Oh, and plants:

On this ‘Graham’, if you look closely, you can see Trevor the spider eating poor old Amos the fly. ‘When he said come for lunch,’ said Amos in his last interview, ‘I didn’t think he meant…’

As you know, I am not a plant person. I leave all that to the experts: Adriana (see her blog) and Lyndon (see his blog).

Some of the island’s church are open at all times, others are locked. You can try the doors but don’t force them. They say not to use flash when photographing frescoes (though I think that might be to do with chemicals, from the old days?) and of course, be respectful. I always drop a coin or two in the box though if I light a candle, I blow it out before I leave. I’m a bit ‘health & safety’ in that respect.

And here we have the man himself being Stig of the Dump, a book I remember fondly from a few years back. We found this chair in the quarry on our way back from a walk.

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Just back from the Monday morning walk/jog up the hill and back, Neil’s exercising in the courtyard, and I am eager to get to the typewriter, not that I own one. Today it’s that Monday morning feeling of getting back to work after a weekend that seemed to last forever.

It started on Saturday morning with me being able to do some work on the comedy novel, and then us heading down to Yialos to find some blank DVDs, and ink for the printer. That ended up with a light lunch at Mereklis, sitting in the sun and staying far too long, before walking back up the hill. Neil went to work and then, at five, we headed down to Pedi where we had been invited for ‘nibbles;’ and drinks.

Well, if that’s nibbles, next time I’m going for dinner! A wonderful spread and with great company. The boys came with us and were a joy to have around. On the way back up the hill we were singing like the Von Trapp family, an assortment of country songs and songs from shows. The highlight? Harry, aged seven, leading the way, then stopping, turning around and saying, ‘Mummy, you know, sometimes it’s hard to be a woman.’

Three adults in stitches all the way up the hill and two boys asking what’s so funny? A couple of glasses at Rainbow on the way home and, hey presto! It’s Sunday. I was going to prepare a blog post so I didn’t have to do it this morning, but I was, once again, able to get back to ‘Straight Swap’, the comedy novel set in my home town. Before I knew it, it was lunch time and before I knew that was done, it was time to go to a barbeque (it was a light lunch of salad). Again, great company, great views, two well behaved young men (and Neil) and another great spread.

This morning then, starts with exercise, then typing, and later today, a tap dance rehearsal. The show is two weeks away now so it’s about time I learned which bit comes where – and hunted out a suitable costume. And on that note, I am going to pour a coffee, post this up and then settle into the start of a whole new week. Have a good one.

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I left you overnight at the small church of Ag Raphael. It was here, while on our healthy, afternoon walk, that we were invited in to take photos and join the name day festivities. We celebrated our health-walk with a beer and donuts. Actually, we didn’t eat the donuts there, we took them home, but we did have a souvlaki. It is rude not to. We also took some photos inside and around the church. Here are a few:

Back to the Symi walk and, slightly lightheaded, what you do is this: You can looks one way and see the other side of the island, across the main road and towards Ag Michaelis Roukouniotis…

… and you can look the other way towards Symi harbour. Looking that way, with the church on your right, you head down the semi-made up road a way.

Keep an eye out to your left where you will, after a short distance, see red marks and arrows that apparently point to nothing in particular. Look more closely and you see you’re on an old calderimi, a ‘donkey path.’ From here on it’s easy.

All you do now is walk, very carefully, downhill following this old path. There’ also a water pipe at one point, but don’t follow that all the way as it has business elsewhere. Follow the track past the copse, zigzag down and you will, eventually come to a gate by a ruined house. Through there and the path is more made up, but still uneven. But follow that all the way and you will, eventually, come out at the back of the harbour at the Grace Hotel.

From then on it’s easy enough to find your favourites Symi bar, or taverna, or coffee shop or find your way home. This walk took us two hours from home to harbour, but we did stop at the church for about 20 minutes and we don’t amble, we kind of hurry-walk, especially between one beer and another.

That’s it! Have a good weekend! (Normal sized photos will be back next week, I was just seeing how they looked in this kind of format post. Remember you can click one and you should then be able to run a slideshow of all of them in the open window.)

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Good morning! How was your night on the mountainside? Had breakfast?

Right, done that, carry on walking. We have just passed Ag Pareskevi on the path from Horio to Xissos. Just past the church there is a Tardis style WC on the hill, keep going. Then there’s a house above you, and just past that the path turns off to the right. It’s a bit hard to spot but there are red marks here. It’s going to get rubbly from now on, so you should be wearing good walking boots or shoes. If not, leave your party there and pop back to your hotel and collect some, you will regret it otherwise.

Now we are heading off track a little and following an ancient wall through an area marked on the map as TEIXOΣ which, strangely, means ‘Wall.’ This path takes us through the area known as Nimoraki, but I don’t know what that translates as, little Nimoros perhaps? It also takes you past the croquet lawns, which are, of course, not croquet lawns at all. But, with a little imagination and a lot of rock moving, there’s no reason why they should not be.

Pass on by, after admiring the view – here’s a tip: Look at your feet while walking on these paths, but stop and look up every now and then or you will miss views, plants, birds and other stuff.

So, now we can carry on to the top of the path where you will pass the small church of Ag Raphael behind the fence on your right. This is a tiny pre-fab church which is lovely inside and where, if you happen to be walking on our walk (which you weren’t) you get invited in for a look around as the name day event is taking place. But that is for tomorrow. I’ll let you draw your breath here, find your Symi map and mark the route, ready for when you do it on your next visit.

More tomorrow…

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So, this walk we went on, on Tuesday, where was it to? (Reaches for the maps…) It took us up Ag Paraskevi, then down an old river bed and broken calderimi under Ag Fanouris to the back of Yialos behind the Grace Hotel.

It started, as most of our walks do, from home, so if you want to follow it, start from the village square and walk towards Ilemonitisa church along the road that winds out of the square. Follow that all the way around until you can see the back of Yialos on your right. Stop and take a look and a photo.

Now carry on past the cats in the bins on your left and the hut on your right. (And the sheep on a balcony to your left. What? I know, welcome to Greece.)

Then… Well, now it gets tricky, but head to Lambos supermarket (you may need to ask directions but at the end of the road, keep going into the path and when you have to go right or left, go left, up, and then 2^nd right, and then straight on). Pass the supermarket ‘Pandapoleon’ on your left and go up, then right and up to Ag Stavros, the church on your left. Then turn right past that, straight through the little square at the end of that path, then up a small lane on the left and follow that, and, apart from a couple of wiggles which are obvious, just keep going up until you start on an old track out of the village.

Stop beyond the bedpost-come-gate to take photos:

Say hello to the pony that may or may not be there and follow the sign to Xissos. If that’s not there, then keep straight on using the lower path; the one that heads up takes you up to the main road, and we are not doing main roads today. Now you stay on this path until you find a church to your left, Ag. Pareskevi. But, if you are here in early season, it’s worth looking down to the terracing you can see from this path. You can clearly see the difference between dry un-terraced land and terrace land; the clue is in the colour, even in April.

Okay, enough walking for today. You rest up there and admire the view, and I will be back avrio for path two. I mean part two.

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