Rockin' and rollin' our way to Rhodes

Although we kept extending our stay in Symi for 'just another day' we realized that if we were to get to Rhodes it was time to say goodbye to our new friends and finds and set sail.  Our ship for this trip was the fast-boat Dodekanisos which normally would have whisked us across the 24 kilometers of Agean Sea in an hour.  But we did have a bit of stormy weather -- some said it was the red-dust-blowing Siroco winds from Africa and others said it had changed to the northern winds -- that rocked and rolled our boat like a swing.  They finally dropped the speed a bit but because of our early departure from Symi  we found ourselves at the gates of the medieval city by 9 a.m. Tuesday.

We announced our arrival in this old town as we rattled and clattered our bags through the labyrinth of narrow cobbled streets and alleyways until we happened upon Niki's Hotel where we are now 'at home' in a room that opens on to a garden terrace, up so high that a lemon tree drooping with fruit provides a backdrop to the view.

This 2,500 year Old Town of Rhodes is the largest inhabited medieval town in Europe -- once home to 30,000 some residents it now has 5,000 living within he walls.  We quite literally cross a moat and enter the town through one of its 13 gates to 'get home' after one of our excursions.

The old town is surrounded now by a new town which provides an itneresting juxtaposition:  we can walk one direction and be in a palace  inhabited by the Knights of St. John for some 200 years after their arrival in 1309 or we can walk a few blocks outside the walls and sip a Starbucks coffee. 

The waters that surround Rhodes have got to be some of the most spectacular we've seen; the colors of the sea simply dazzle.

Symi Days

Symi has provided not only spectacular 'in town' walks but some out into the countryside as well. And it seems the town father's or the tourist organization has worked extremely hard to make such explorations a most comfortable experience -- even though the routes can take you up and down from dizzying heights.  One of our favorite destinations was 'around the corner' a couple miles from where we were staying.  We had the option of walking on the dirt/paved roadway or going through town and linking up with the trail pictured above.  Our  little neighboring hamlet is called Nimborios - there we found  a scatterin of  spectacular private homes, a few rental studio apartnements and  a single taverna. . .who needs more in this setting?

 

 The trail was a flat surface all the way; rather steep and they don't use handrails or guardrails around here. . .so you can't let those drop-dead vistas let you lose concentration for too long, but with views like the one below it was hard not to be distracted.

Sunday Dinner in Symi

Our dinner is waiting for us back at our apartment. . .thanks to Fotini (foe-tee-NEE), the woman from whom we are renting and also our next-door-neighbor.  As we have settled into life on this magnificent harbor we realize everyone knows 'our' Fotini. . .we are asked where we are staying and we show the official businness card and the response is, "You stay at Fotini's."

We consider our stay here one of our best - thanks to Fotini making us feel a part of her family.  She and her husband do live next door, her daughter and grand-child and husband are above us and we speculate that a fellow just down the road might be related as well.

Fotini and her husband, we think, are about our ages - and constantly on the go.  They come and go by small boat as we do at home by car.  But when Fotini is home, she cooks and when she cooks, she shares.  Our first day in the studio I was 'preparing' lunch:  opening a package of sliced cheese to have with a sliced tomato and bread when I heard Joel chatting with Fotini.  She had brought us a little something for lunch: shrimp risotto, complete with a lemon to squeeze. (I sliced the tomato):

                         Since that first feast Fotini has provided a plate of pastries for my morning coffee and two days ago she brought us a plate of baklava from her sister-in-law in Turkey.  But back to tonight's dinner:  yesterday while she and her husband were gone, his brother brought them a large fireshly caught fish. . .we said we'd keep it in our place until they came home.  I took it over to them this morning and we headed out for a walk.  When we got home, we found our dinner waiting for us - a wonderful pot of fish stew (we had some for lunch) and cake.

As we have said before, travel is about places, but it is also about people. . .and Fotini is one of our all-time travel highlights.

On the road in Symi

Fellow blogger, Adriana Schum, who introduced us to this lovely island through her blog (listed on our blog log) reports that the weather here is above normal and that visitors and cats are looking for shade.  She's correct.  The temperature is 30C - read that, hot!  (We are not complaining -- just making note of it.)

We rented a car yesterday to explore this tiny island which has one primary road and several others that aren't quite the size of roads as we know them in the US but they took us to spectacular locations all the same. First trick was threading our way past the centuries old buildings that line the harbor. . .you time it so that you don't meet the island's one bus coming the opposite direction or you are the one to back up on these narrow stretches.

Then we were up, way up among the pine tries. . .in all fairness many stretches of the roadway did have guardrails. . .and others like this, didn't.  I will show you where this road took us. . .in tomorrow's post, but as Adriana so aptly said, I am heading out now for shade or air conditioning!

Settled in on Symi

We are pretty much settled in on Symi, the rocky, dry island in the Dodecanese chain of Greek islands that ring the south western coast of Turkey.  We are only six miles from the Turkish peninsula, Datco.  And we have set up a sort of housekeeping in a studio apartment in the middle of the group of three buildings shown in the photo above.

If you've ever dreamt of sailing the Greek islands this is the place to be as we have a steady stream of boat traffic just outside our door. . .fishing boats so tiny that you wonder how they stay afloat, multi-million dollar
private yachts, charter boats the size to make you gasp and of course the ferries.  This charter from Turkey pulled in earlier today.

We watch the parade from our deck.  Our room is a mere 50E a night. We lucked out whenwe met Fotini, the lady from whom we are renting.  More about her next time.

Cruising the Adriatic

We left Crete on Tuesday from its northeastern most port of Sitia.  We'd had a spectacular bus trip there the day before and had a few hours to explore the town after our late afternoon arrival.  We sailed Anek lines on the Priveli, a ship te size of cruise ships and complete with bars, restaurants, lounges and sun decks.  We opted for the sun deck. As you can tell, we opted for the sun deck where we spent much of the nine hours it took to travel from Sitia to Rhodes, or Rodos as it is known here.

Here Joel shows why we like ferry travel so much more than airplanes these days.

We arrived in Rhodes after seeing some beautiful islands and ports along the way that now are added to our 'next time' list including this one on the island of Karpathos:

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We changed to a smaller ferry in Rhodes and at 9 p.m., 12 hours after we had left Sitia, we arrived in our new destination the island of Symi,  More on it tomorrow. . .we are back to using internet cafes so will tease you with the photo of the harbor we entered to get to our new spot:

The Colors of the Sea

That-- the colors of the sea -- is what I told him when he said he wanted to make me a gift.  But you see the real story here is that the time I spent with Georgios Chalkoutsakis on that warm Cretan afternoon was the real gift.  'George' as we were to call him before the day was over ( we couldn't master the Greek pronunciation), is a glass bead artist. And lucky for me his home/studio was only two doors down from Poppy's,where we stayed in Kastri on Crete's southern coast.

My neighbor, a fellow tourist from Germany, had told me about George and apparently had told George about me because he was expecting me. He knew I was from America but had no idea where Seattle was located.  He spoke excellent English and told me it was self-taught by watching television - Extreme Makeover is his very favorite show and he only wishes he could tell its star, Ty, how much he likes him.

George would be described by some as 'handicapped', but I would call him gifted..  He is wheelchair bound as result of a premature birth.  His hand movement is also just a bit limited but that hasn't kept him from perfecting his art of glass bead making.

"If you have the time I will make a pearl for you," he said of the glass beads he creates. "What colors do you like?"  It was then we agreed on the colors of the sea.

After watching the bead being created and placed in the cooling sand, George and I settled in for a vist.  We talked about philosophies of life, politics, both Greek and American, the difficult and sad times he had growing up as a child who wasn't the same as normal boys, and about what my life is like.  Joel joined us sometime later and he also was treated to a pearl-making demonstration.

We returned much later - after dinner - for my gift and decided that other pearls should be added to it and a necklace made.  I became George's assistant:  I held the glue.

And it didn't take long until the artist had completed my necklace; I indeed had the colors of the sea.  The price of the finished piece a mere 20E, but ias far as I am concerned, it is priceless!

Poppy's Garden

Let me begin by saying this isn't a set up photo, this was a scene in Poppy's garden, the enchanting place we had seen last fall really was home to studio apartments for rent.  The place is owned by a woman in her 40's known appropriately it seems, as Poppy.  The gardens were a wonderland of lemon trees, jasmine covered fences, artichoke bushes, papaya trees, daisies, roses, geraniums that overflowed their pots, amaryllis plants and other edibles.

Our room was one of the nicest we have found along our travels, stocked with coffee pot, hot water pot, dishes, cookware, even flowered china tea cups and saucers.  The sheets so thick and white they could compete with any four star hotel.  Poppy also provided a basket of fresh picked peppers and tomatoes. Our cost per night: 25E just over $30!

Poppy doesn't have a website. The name of her apartments are Philoxenia, phone number 28950 51371.