Monday 30th June
Well it’s been a longish haul down to Symi and having got here what were we going to do next ?
Given we have ADIP (the house in Samos) booked from the 17th July, did it make sense to continue further west to perhaps Astipalea (Butterfly of the Aegean) or just start to head back?
In a way the sad passing of Dave Milne helped make up our minds.
We would start heading back up to Kos where Louise would fly home for his funeral. I would take the boat from Kos to (good old) Leros. Louise would fly back to Kos after the funeral, then get the ferry to Leros where I would pick her up.
Having come this far however, a day trip into Symi town seemed obligatory. We have been before. There’s not a lot of places we haven’t visited at some point or other . We have now been sailing in Greece since 2017 so repeat visits are just part & parcel of that.
We didn’t expect the visit into town to be quite as short as it turned out though.
The bus times from Panormitis are not brilliant and the taxi price is just downright ridiculous. You have departures from Panormitis at either 07:00 in the morning which means getting up about 06:00 to get ready & row ashore. ( Nicolas wasn’t impressed the last time I remember !) or at 11:00 BUT the return bus is either at 13:00 or 16:00.
We had plumped for the 11:00 in and the 16:00 back but when we got there it was so hot and busy we couldn’t be bothered hanging around – it was tourist hell. We both decided let’s just pick up some provisions , grab a kebab and head back to the peace of Panormitis, which is what we did. Back on the bus at 13:00. LOL
It is lovely but, we’ve been there, done it, and bought the tee shirt I’m afraid.
We did have time to get some shots of the town .
Symi town approach from the bus
Symi town
Louise waiting for our carry out Gyros – they were very good!
’The way the boats were bouncing on the quay was borderline dangerous. We can’t show the video clips on the blog but we wouldn’t want to be berthed there – couldn’t anyway – not suitable for Lily with the main road feet away and a noisy busy town she might get lost in!
View of Panormitis from the bus on the way back
Lily cool as, well a cat ! hanging nonchalantly off the back to welcome us back.
Some lovely views from the Taverna , Panormitis, across the bay
So, say you calculate from Leros (our centre of Greek civilisation this year), we will have completed a return trip of around 160 miles and 35 hours underway for a 1 hour dash around Symi town , LOL
Ah well what else would we be doing – daytime TV? Blue skies & sunshine – no contest, but we admit we are looking forward to some land based time this summer back at ADIP.
