November 16 - Symi, Greece

We’re anchored off the little Greek island of Symi today.  This is a small island in the Dodecanese island chain. The closest land is the Asian coast of Turkey.  Symi is less than 25 sq. miles in area and it’s mountainous. In Greek mythology Symi was thought to be the birthplace of the Charites who were the goddesses of charm, beauty, goodwill and creativity.  The name supposedly comes from the Nymph Syme.  In The Iliad the King of the island, King Nireus, is mentioned as being the handsomest man in the Athenian forces after Achilles.  At one time Symi was primarily known for shipbuilding and sponges. As with all the islands around here this one has been held by Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, and Crusader Knights during the various Crusades in the 11th through 13th centuries.  In the 20th century after WW I it was ceded to the Italians and when WW II began it was occupied by the Nazis.  After their defeat it was occupied by the British for several years until it finally became part of Greece. It’s a popular vacation place for Italians and British and in fact, there are about 50 British ex-pats who live here permanently.

We tendered ashore around 10:30 and arrived at the lower town.  The place is essentially a fishing village and there were a lot of small fishing boats tied up with piles of nets on the quayside.  The buildings are painted in a variety of different colors but not as brightly as some of the places I’ve seen around the Mediterranean.  I have to say it didn’t look all that prosperous to me. It’s past tourist season so some shops were closed, but there were nowhere near as many as I saw yesterday in Bodrum. There is an upper village where there is supposed to be a pretty and old Byzantine church.  We asked how to get there without climbing the path which has about 500 steps (!!!) and found  there is a bus service which we could take supposedly.  We walked to the bus stop and a very rickety bus came a few minutes later and we boarded. A round trip was 8 euros for the two of us.  We took off on a road that was not for the fainthearted.  We did hairpin turns with our wheels at times right on the edge of the drop-off.  The road was for two-way traffic but barely one lane wide, so when a car came from the other direction we did a lot of backing up and squeezing by.  It was a local bus and one of the other passengers was a Brit who came to live on the island 20 years ago.  We asked what he does here and he said he works at a bar occasionally and just sort of hangs out.  Okay, not my thing but different strokes for different folks. 

Fishing boats and nets. If you look you can see some Turkish carpets covering some of the nets.

You can see from the photos that this place could use a little TLC.  The last one of tthe boat that's seen better days is kind of emblematic of the rest  of Symi.

The bus driver spoke no English and we never did figure out where to get off to see the church.  We did gather that if we got off to look around and take some photos of the beautiful views we would have to wait close to an hour for the bus to come back to take us to the harbor. None of the stops looked like somewhere we’d like to hang out for an hour, so we and the few other cruisers on the bus all decided to just do a round trip. As I said, it was not a prosperous looking place.  There were some crumbling buildings and derelict cars around.  There were a few rough looking boats halfway up the hillside and I wondered why they were there. I couldn’t get pictures of the scenes because the windows had some kind of coating on them.  Anyway, I guess I’m just not Bohemian enough to appreciate the place.  I told my friend that I couldn’t even really see coming here for a short vacation. There are too many other really pretty Greek islands.

Trivia isn’t getting better.  I think the Cruise Director and his assistant have scoured the net for the most obscure questions they could find.  The team has some very nice people on it, but as with anything if you’ve got several people we all come up with what we think is right on these off-the-wall questions and whoever is more assertive winds up persuading the others. I guess I just need to put my foot down a little harder.  Really though, it’s not worth it. Today’s prize was a coffee mug.

After trivia we had one of Seabourn’s signature events, a classical music and caviar sailaway party.  As the sun had gone down and the wind had picked up, it was a little chilly on deck.  I didn’t stay until the end because I was getting goosebumps and I needed to get cleaned up and changed for dinner and dancing later on.  The captain did come on and say we’ve had another itinerary change.  Tomorrow we’ll be in Santorini and the weather should be good.  The last day of the cruise for those disembarking in Athens on Sunday has been changed.  There’s a big storm around the island of Syros  so instead on Saturday we’re going to Nafplio on the Peloponnese peninsula. That’s okay with me because I’ve been to neither and will get to see something new either way.