Another Symi walk (easy)
We’re certainly getting our fill of rain today (Tuesday). It started overnight and has been heavily on an off all day so far. At least it’s warmed things up a bit. So it was lucky we chose to go for an after lunch walk on Monday instead of waiting. Here’s another Symi walk idea for you and it’s a simple one.
We walked through the village along the main road. You must understand that the main road in this case is only wide enough for very slim vehicles and mopeds, walkers, shoppers and the mule train. It leads you past the new grocery shop where you can look up and out for the crest on the top of the building, and towards Taverna Zoi. You pass the Jean & Tonic Bar, now open at 3pm every day and complete with coverings outside and over the courtyard so it’s now an all-year, all-weather bar as well as often being an all-night one in the summer; past the English language schools and taverna and left down towards the bus stop.
There’s a new shelter here now (just the other side of the barrier in the above photo), where the rubbish skip used to be, the rubbish is now collected form the lower car park which is itself being cleared of building debris as the cottage hospital takes shape. Opposite this, where once was a one story shed and a gaping hole, a new building is being set up and, beside this, there was a fruit and veg van selling its traveling produce. Walk on towards the new sport centre.
You are walking along the main, main road now, wide enough in most places for two cars, the bus and all the agricultural vehicles we have here on Symi, though not at the same time and it does narrow near the old surgery building. On this road you get good views down to Pedi and across the water to Turkey and a large white building where, so I am told, the largest, or most expensive, pleasure yacht is currently being built. Keep on up the road, it can be a bit of a slog if you are not used to hills but you go slowly, pausing here and there to admire the valley below. Turn a few bends in the road and carry on up towards the sign for Ag Triada, the top church in the village. I noticed that the trees along here have recently been enthusiastically pollarded.
You can of course, carry on up the main road and onto oblivion, well, Xissos and Panormitis and the hinterland of the island, or you can head back towards the village via the Triada path. Not long after the shrine to an accident victim (I assume) you cut down to the right on a rough path, or carry on towards the church and take the main steps, and from then on you are heading down through the upper village towards the museum. If you find yourself lost in the lanes, just keep heading downhill, you will find something you recognise before too long and will eventually meet the sea, if you go too far.
That’s the short walk we took the other day and it was a good day to be walking, until the cloud started coming over. I’m not heading out there today, not in this rain, but maybe tomorrow I shall attempt a downwards assault on the harbour as I need to visit the bank and a shop or two.
