Still walking to Panormitis (3)
I think it is going to be a week of walking pictures; I mean, pictures of us walking. Neil’s just sent me loads as well, so I’ll let them out over the next few weeks, filling you in with anything of interest that might come along. Like today’s news that there is a parcel waiting for me at the bookshop. Could this be the duvet that was delivered from one side of a warehouse to the other…?

I’m just going to put these photos up and then I will be off to have a look, and must try and remember to buy some printer ink. Three times I’ve gone down there now and three times I’ve forgotten it. Mind you, on each occasion I had come from the dentist, so maybe it’s excusable. That work is all done now and I can eat without grumbling; at least until the next one goes wrong.

And talking of going wrong, the main loo needs fixing as there’s a slow leak on it somewhere. The pump, in the sterna beneath my feet, can be heard turning on every few minutes and that means there’s a drop in water pressure and that means there’s a leak. I isolated all the taps and luckily in this house (and it’s quite common elsewhere) you have have a feed tap to turn on or off to make it easier to change your taps, washing machine, shower etc. Doing this I was able to isolate the problem, which I wouldn’t have known about had not the pump gone off – and it’s a quiet one. So, later today I may stick my hands in the WC cistern and see what I can break in there.

Back to the walk: we arrived at the top of the famous zigzag road two hours after leaving home, at 9.50 to be exact. From up there we could hear the Papas at the monastery as the service is played out through speakers. As we would find out later, there were thousands of people at the festival and it is a very small chapel so most of the congregation are outside.

Man stops to take photo on the way down. There are 15 bends in this stretch of road. And from the top to Panormitis took us one hour 50 to walk/limp/hobble.

The picnic spot. Last time we were here it was to see the stars.

And here we found another Symi sundial:

More photos tomorrow.

Share on Facebook

The last couple of blog posts have been a little bit rantish (a word I just made up) and have been fuelled by the refugee crisis and some people’s reaction to it. So today we are returning to Symi and, in a moment, going for a ramble up a hillside. And talking of rambles:

I should apologise, as I endlessly do, for the typos and mistakes you read in my blogs; there are two reason for this. 1) Although I do read things back, I don’t always see my own mistakes. Here’s something I found: “The reason typos get through isn’t because we’re stupid or careless, it’s because what we’re doing is actually very smart”, explains psychologist Tom Stafford, who studies typos of the University of Sheffield in the UK.” (I like Tom.) “We don’t catch every detail, we’re not like computers or NSA databases,” said Stafford. “Rather, we take in sensory information and combine it with what we expect, and we extract meaning.” (I really like Tom.) The full article is here: http://www.wired.com/2014/08/wuwt-typos/

And, 2) I am so inaccurate at typing, though I do use all five fingers on one hand and three on the other, I’ve never been taught to touch type and I rattle off around 100 words a minute when up to full steam, but my fingers aren’t designed for keyboards so I hit the wrong letters. This gets so bad that I then go to autocorrect and change my most common ones, and so sometimes autocorrect corrects a word incorrectly and I read what should be there not what actually is there. So, sorry about that but really, ‘if thine eyes offend thee, pluck them out’ (which I always thought was extreme advice) and if my typos offend thee, pluck off. Back to our walk.

This was days ago now but, as you read this I am journeying back from Rhodes with mother, all being well, I went out for a ramble on Thursday afternoon as I’d missed my early morning walk/jog. I thought I’d climb up to the top of the ridge and have a look at Panagia Hamon. Three in the afternoon is probably not the best time to go walking when it’s 35 degrees, but I like a good sweat and I had plenty of water, a phone in case of emergencies, and I was wearing a bright orange t-shirt so it would be easy for the air sea rescue to spot me should I need them. Seriously, if you’re going to ramble up hillsides always take precautions and I don’t mean… well, you know what I don’t mean.

Through the village, up to the top and then down the Ag Marina cemetery – Habib and his brother passed me on their moped and asked if I wanted a lift down into the village. I thanked and declined and then wondered how we would all fit on it anyway, and headed for the barking dog. Not only is he bonkers but he also barks a lot. Here, at the big gates, you turn right and follow the arrow, it’s a bit faded now, and then follow the red dots until they run out…

It didn’t take long for me to lose the path and go off piste, but I went carefully and knew roughly were I was heading – for the top of course, it’s easy really. But there’s actually quite a lot of scree on them there hills so you have to be careful. My training came back to me, the lessons learned when 16 and climbing Snowdon with the school: If in doubt, test the rock before you put all your weight on it, go sideways when coming down scree and zigzag rather then head straight down, always expect that every footstep is going to lead to a slide so you’re always prepared, and if there’s a tourist train to the top, take that.

I reached around 300 metres I guess and then decided that, as I’d been climbing hard for around an hour since leaving home, I’d had enough exercise. There are great views from up there, so I stopped to have some water and a look around and then carefully slid my way back down again. If you’re heading up that hill make sure you wear proper boots and, if you can bear it, long trousers. There are lots of dry herb bushes around at the moment and they don’t half scratch. More Photos tomorrow.

Share on Facebook

Friday late morning and I am thinking of heading out for another afternoon walk later. I need to consider the next chapter in ‘The Saddling’ and a long walk around the hillside is a good way to spend the time contemplating. Thinking thus made me wonder if I’d told you about the walk I took the other day? I checked back a week or so but didn’t see anything so I reckon my refugee rambles had taken over and I’d forgotten to talk about the simple stroll I did. So let’s do that now.

First of all, getting yourself out of the village is not always an easy task. You can head up the main road like we do of an early morning, but that’s a pretty laborious way to go, though the views are fab. Instead, head for the donkey path which you find by crossing behind Ag Stavros and heading to where… Hang on, it’s easy when you know how but no so easy to explain. Best off asking one of the tour operators of they have any of the walking on Symi books, or see if the Olive Tree have a guide. Or ask someone for the donkey track and eventually, after a climb and some scenery, you should find yourself at a gate, and then a lone tree with views of Yialos.

The path separates and there’s now a sign directing you to Panormitis along the upper track or toe Xissos on the lower one. This is the one I followed and along here I saw some black and white birds that my learned friend (Lyndon) later told me were ‘white eared windsheeters’ or ‘white wind chat eaters,’ or even a wheateater of some sort. I dunno, black and white things they were. And my attempt to photograph them led to pictures of rocks with a tiny bird in there somewhere. Don’t even bother looking. (But look here for a list of birds you can find on Symi: http://symifloraandfauna.jigsy.com/symibirdlist )

Further on, past the chapel at Ag Paraskevi and the house just beyond it, you can find a red arrow on the path. Not a crashed jet but a direction. Two in fact. Carry on to Xissos or turn right onto a rough track. Here you need decent shoos, flop-flips won’t cut the greater bustard (didn’t see one of them), you need proper walking boots as some of the time you are walking over rubble. You’re following the old ‘wall’ as it’s marked on the map, and we’ve walked this way before I am sure of it. After some time you reach the top of the hill and join the road. From here you can see over the island to the sea on the western side, and look back to see the bay on the eastern side too. If you snap your head around really fast you can almost see both at once before you fall over and hurt yourself.

I simply followed the road back from here. You get some good views coming this way and see all kinds of folk heading off towards the western side of the island, to Roukouniotis or their farms out on the hills. You end up thinking, ‘Oh there’s… I wonder what he’s heading over this way for?’ and ‘Where’s he off to at this time of day?’ as you amble down the gentle slope back towards the village.

Keep an eye out for goat action on the right and the views to Yialos and Pedi and Turkey on the left as you zig zag down to the upper village where you can either carry on down the road (Starring Sid James and Hattie Jacques) or cut through to Periotisa and make your way down the steps and back into the village. This is what I did as it was coming close to beer O’clock and so I thought I would surprise Neil at work.

That’s a very rough outline of one walk you can do on Symi, it took me under two hours and I know how to get to the path out of the village. It was late afternoon in August so still hot and you should wear a hat really, and take water. I got through about one litre in two hours. But there you go. That’s me on a Saturday morning for you – whether I went out on Friday afternoon is yet to be seen, but I shall no doubt let you know one day. Here are a few more shots of the same walk. Have a good weekend.

Share on Facebook

The main road through Symi was only really opened up in the 80s and 90s. When I was first here, in 1996, I followed the tarmacked road from outside Lavinia Studios, where I was staying, and up the hill to see where it went. I followed it to the start of the forest about half way across the island and there it ran out, becoming a trail of rocks and stones, blasted out and ready to be flattened and tarmacked. I may be wrong (usual am) but it wasn’t actually finished until we came to live here in 2002, or it had only just been finished all the way, or something like that. Since then new roads have been laid (lain?) across the island to link distant homes and farms and even beaches to the main road. Still no traffic lights or roundabouts though.

And we’re now walking on this road heading back towards Ag Konstantinos, past the now collapsed army outpost building where once upon a time soldiers used to stand guard, past their old shooting range and the old kalderimi, the original path from Yialos to Panormitis, or at least one of them. As we walk along we can follow the edge of this, though it disappears under the main road, the scree that’s been churched up from the road building, under piles of trash thrown over the hillside by lazy folk, old washing machines and stuff that the council has to come and clear away (woops there goes our council tax) and even under someone’s house on the edge of the main road.

From up here we can see the island of Halki, which looked like it was being rained on, and Tilios and Nissyros and even the bottom end of Kos behind the Turkish peninsular. The clouds are still massing and passing, some grey, others white, a cloud-spotters dreamscape I imagine. And far off by the old fish farm the gullet that was used to illegally transport some refugees, and that was listing to port last week (if you read last week’s walk you will have seen the image), has now capsized and gone under. I guess the council or port police will have to try and do something about that, I am thinking they might like to get a team in to clear away any pollution (whoops there goes the rest of my council tax), but that may be my own kind of dreamscape.

And onwards, the old kalderimi running out as we pass the fork for Ksisos/Panormitis, my feet finally starting to ache as we’ve been marching now for four hours, the tummy rumbling and someone in the party mentioning a glass of something at Mandeio’s on our return. This kind of spurs us on, as does the thought of the thing in the slow cooker that I rustled up this morning, making dinner an easy thing to organise when we get home.

I have to pause at the house by the road to check out the contraption. I am not sure what it is, looks like a clothes line, or a way of getting things from road to house, but it’s an intriguing use of a bicycle pedal.

And we finally make it to Mandeio’s for a glass of red four and a half hours after leaving home, having done a circular route, and passed the museum where the external scaffolding has now come down at last. It looks like there’s still work going on inside and on the roof, but the outside walls and the shutters appear to have been fixed up.

And so to home and dinner where our walking friends made a complete fuss of Jack, the Alarm Cat who, after an hour or so of being allowed to share his fur with anyone on the sofa, was quite overcome and, by the looks of it, took to the bottle. To round off the day (and remember we’re still talking about last Sunday) we went to the switching on of the Spalding illuminations, which was a fun event. Now I just need to head back up the hill to 400 metres and see if I can see the lights from up there and the betting is that I will be able to. But I am not going up there at night to check it out.

Scroll down for the boat I mentioned, before and after.

Share on Facebook

Still Walking through the Χαμές area of Symi (part 3), still wandering the Symi hills last Sunday:

Following the road-come-track we pass a church dedicated to Agia Marina to our right and come out of the woods to an area with no specific name; it’s between Pervola on the west and Koupi on the east, and, from the centre of this area you can look south (towards Rhodes, roughly) and down into the Nanou valley. If you are looking at a map you can find us near the church of Ioannis Tsagrias where a threshing circle is marked, that is if you are on the same Symi Terrain Maps as me.

Anyhow, there is an ancient ruin hereabouts, which is a few metres from the path, or thereabouts, and this is where we find us four walkers, or layabouts. Actually, we’re not laying about we’re clambering about and examining the stones, many of which are dressed. Some of them are in the same design/formation as those at the bottom wall of the Castro, which we know from books to come from Byzantine times (330 to 1453 a.d.); closely cut together to fit neatly leaving no gaps and not requiring mortar.

The stones are forming a wall on three sides of a natural hill, the fourth wall, facing south, is mainly made up of natural bedrock, sharp and rising to an apex. If there was a fourth wall there it’s long since gone. In nearby shepherd huts and once-were buildings you can clearly see some of these dressed and very large stones, so the site, whatever it was, has been robbed out.

Within the walls there is a large stone circle which could have been a roundhouse, it could have been an animal enclosure or it could have been something else. I wondered what this place may have been. If agricultural, why go to the trouble of dressing so many large stones and building what would have looked like a fortification? I didn’t think it was a temple as it didn’t face east-west as you would expect, and it was more square in shape, rather than rectangular. So, I wondered if it had once been some kind of fortification or defence, or even an outpost or beacon.

From the top of the centre, the rocky outcrop, you get a panoramic view from Nanou and beyond (you can just make out Rhodes), all the way around 360 degrees to the various hillsides. If anyone was going to come up the Nanou valley you would see them, if anyone was coming from Panormitis across country (before roads) you would see them, and you could easily light a beacon to warn anyone at the top of the mountain, who would then light another one to warn the town. Just a thought.

We had a great time carefully exploring the site, there are pottery shards there but they could be ‘recent’ and there are stones which were clearly, at one time, door steps with holes cut for posts and the like. But what this place actually was remains a mystery for me; perhaps someone will let me know at some point?

And so onwards towards home. This involves following the road and keeping the Vigla (the main mountain) to your right as you head towards the main road, which is where we shall pic things up tomorrow.

Share on Facebook