Symi in late December: Wine, Fridges and Frescoes

 

There are two souvlaki houses in Symi harbour, but both turned out to be closed until the New Year. A lot of islanders went away for the holidays, and you can’t blame them after two Covid years and then a financial recovery year which was exceptionally busy. A bar had burgers and club sandwiches, but they said one restaurant was open around the harbour. I wanted a big dinner as fuel for walking the next day.

The restaurant was open, empty (it was early), didn’t have any of the oven-baked food I’d hoped for, and was quite expensive. The salad was mostly rock-hard tomatoes. But it had a nice view over the water, friendly people; gradually other customers arrived, a group of English people who had a house here, and two frozen-looking Germans who’d arrived on a boat and ordered tea and fava.

The owner came to talk to me when he wasn’t busy, and I was pleased to chat in Greek – I don’t get enough practice at home. Asked if I was staying for New Year’s Eve, I explained I’d like to but would have to find a cheaper place to stay. By the end of the evening, I was being offered a room, an extra slice of cheesecake and dinner on the house… and a waitressing job.

So I did wake next morning with a certain anxiety. How do these things happen? No matter, it could all be resolved later.

It was 28 December, and outside my windows that looked straight out onto the water, cars and scooters were zipping about. The sun briefly hit the other side of the harbour around 9 a.m., then went behind a small cloud, and everything was still damp and cool, though forecast to get warm. I made myself a Greek coffee and sat on the lovely balcony, listening to cockerels crowing somewhere back around the Kali Strata, the steps that lead up to the Horio flanked by mansions from the late 1800s.

Despite visiting Symi several times – often for its great hardware shops, I must admit, though with good walks also – I’d never been up high in the centre of the island on foot to see the old wine presses. These sunny, bright winter days were perfect for it, though I’d have to set out by mid-morning given it was getting dark soon after five.

We set out inland from the back of the harbour to reach the cemetery at Elikoni, didn’t see any markings for the path from there that was on the map, but found a way up the dry riverbed a bit and through gates, passing sheep that approached rather than ran away, until suddenly there was a beautiful old stone-paved donkey path or kalderimi that twisted back and forth up the hillside, making the going easy all the way to a church or two and small group of houses. It was a wonderful start. By then we were already in very warm sunshine – I wished I’d been able to dip Lisa in the sea before we set off – and lovely countryside.

Turning left, we followed the gradually ascending road past the Xisos turn-off and eventually to meet the main road that crosses over the top of the island and heads down again on the other side to the big monastery of Panormitis. Thankfully at this time of year there was no traffic, just the sound of sheep bells (and a jackhammer far below, of course, this also being perfect weather for construction work).

There was a nice little detour on a kalderimi again, beside a field where someone was burning olive branches, to the chapels of Ayia Katerina and Panayia tis Stylou (tempting to think of the name as a corruption of tis Tylou, ‘of Tilos’, since there was a view of our island!). After a couple of hours of ascending, it felt as though we were in the uplands, the road unexpectedly winding around cultivated valleys scattered with monasteries, and eagles and crows circling around Vigla peak just above (617m, the highest on the island), with what looked like a broken wind turbine.

I had decided to aim for the ‘Pano Krasokelia’, Upper Wine Presses, following the directions in Kritikos Sarantis’ booklet Discover Symi on Foot – copyright 2007 but bought here just a couple of years ago so hopefully it wouldn’t be too out of date – along with an also locally produced walking map. Blue and red paint dots also marked paths here and there.

Passing the padlocked monastery of Ayios Konstantinos , I continued to Ayios Nikolas as directed, but there was no sign of the path if I was reading the instructions right. There was a truck outside and washing hanging to dry, but nobody to ask. After a few attempts to find the way across rough ground with gates very tightly wired shut, I had to give up. Perhaps on my own I’d have tried harder, but it wasn’t worth making Lisa walk through fields of thistles.

Back to the road, instead I took the turn a few minutes later to Kokkimidis, following a narrow, pleasant concrete track that ran below those elusive wine presses into beautiful hilly uplands, with enclosures where again the sheep and goats seemed to approach rather than run, and there was a stone-build pond filled with water. I realised I hadn’t seen anything like the death toll of goats we have on Tilos this winter. Although the fences and gates here might be limiting, the animals were looked after, fed and watered.

The track led to a cluster of historic buildings through gorgeous countryside, and at some point, someone in authority must have thought: what a perfect place to throw the old fridges down the mountain! For there, lo and behold, was that scourge of the Greek islands, the edge of the old dump, spilling down the hillside towards the forest.

But at Ais Yiannis Tsagrias, the gate wasn’t padlocked, and the door wasn’t locked, and inside were some of the oldest frescoes on the island. They were dark, hard to make out, but showed up clearly on my phone camera and were thrilling to see. Stepping outside again, I felt blessed to have been able to come to this place and find them, surrounded by spectacular hills covered in rocks and forests, with a stellar view of our modern-day contribution, a cascade of rusted appliances.

Just beyond were the remains of an ancient hilltop fort (above: Lisa shocked that you could see the rubbish dump from here too?), perhaps repurposed once as a farm. There was a big stone water cistern, and a little further along a primitive ancient wine press, just a block of stone with a circular carving, in a padlocked enclosure for animals. 

Beyond there, past some old stone terraces at the end of the road near large old trees was Kambiotissa, a monastery built like a fortress with tall walls and still seemingly guarded thus with padlocks and fences all around. I tried following the fence around to the back and glimpsed what perhaps was a more recent wine-pressing building, but it was hard to tell.

We were tired, and Lisa was keen to head back, but I decided to take one last detour uphill to the monastery of Kokkimidis, joking aloud to Lisa that this one would make our day, even as I fully expected it to be padlocked and fenced. But hallelujah! A car I’d seen earlier, perhaps the only car in hours, speeding up the road, was parked at the top of the winding track, and the gate open. 

I heard voices inside, but seeing nobody, I left Lisa tied to the fence and tried the door to the church, above which was an old plaque alluding to a restoration in 1697 – and opened it to an astonishing little church, every inch of walls and ceiling painted with fascinating, beautiful scenes.

The floor was a pebble mosaic, with an interesting bit of graffiti in it: 8.11.1970, Tilos, and some initials, carved into the stone - that must have taken some dedication! Perhaps M.S.S. was the person who made the floor?

It had been a stroke of luck to find the place open; and I'd have missed that if we'd got to the wine presses. And so, we walked back down, in beautiful light, everything still and glowing, the sea glassy, Lisa determined that we should go back exactly the way we came, while I felt we should take the road as dusk was falling. We compromised by trying a bulldozed track which led to a wonderful old kalderimi, which led all the way to the Horio.

From there Lisa guided us down to the Kali Strata, down to the harbour for dinner - and a bottle of wine on special from the old supermarket. 'Kalo Pascha!' the owner with the dry sense of humour wished me, happy Easter, and I looked puzzled. 'I'm getting ahead of myself,' he said, 'can't wait for winter to be over.'

Wine and White Sand in Winter: The Kos Trip

It was mid-November, and I was nervous as I prepared to leave for Kos on the wine trip. Wine doesn't usually make me nervous, but I’d never driven a car onto a ferry before. 

One evening in Tilos I had been thinking about sourcing some good organic wine, preferably from a nearby island (as no-one sells it here). I used to order from Embona in Rhodes, but then I remembered I’d found good stuff on Kos. I did a little internet search and found not one but two organic wineries in the middle of the island. I tried emailing Mesariano and received a very helpful response in English listing the different wines and prices; they had no problem sending to another island but the shipping cost was a little steep. This gave me an idea…

A couple of years ago, I’d taken a flight that passed over the western part of Kos, and looked down to what looked like a long stretch of wild beach. It seemed somehow unlikely on an island known for embracing touristic development, but there was no sign of hotels or villas. It stuck in my mind that I’d like to take a closer look.

And so, I had two perfect excuses for a trip. Oh, and a third – my new tent needed testing! I just needed to overcome my fear of driving a car on and off a big ferry, so that I could get to the places with Lisa – since dogs aren’t allowed on buses there – and transport the wine.

‘Eineh evkolo,’ it’s easy, said Stelios in the ticket office as I mentioned it was my first time and asked if there was anything I should know. I was lucky in one respect, though: the ferry schedule had been disrupted by a strike, so the big Blue Star that would normally travel late on Friday night had been delayed until 2pm Saturday afternoon, and was less busy than usual, and certainly less busy than in summer or en route to Rhodes – less shouting and hand-waving to deal with and fewer vehicles to avoid as I drove on.

On deck, my anxiety turned to relief, I took pleasure in watching the rugged east coast of Tilos with its very few signs of habitation as we travelled north. There was sun as we docked at Nisyros, but it was already dusk when we arrived at Kos Town. Heading for Pantheon Apartments, a cheap and dog-friendly stopover, I got sucked into a vortex of narrow one-way streets and circled a roundabout three times. I realised I had no idea about parking rules, but since it was Saturday night I did like everyone else, and parked on the pavement in between a couple of trees.  

I took Lisa for a walk around the old harbour walls and a medieval gate. I’d been hoping to do shopping in town but everything was closed, so early Saturday evening saw me at a café-bar I’d noticed but never visited before: Scholarcheio. It seemed a good sign that they had little bottles of organic red from Petra Marinou, the second winery I’d found online. I ordered a lettuce-and-pear salad sprinkled with tiny raisins and a plate of local sausage which I shared with Lisa. The place was packed by the time I left, the waiter rushed off his feet.

In the grey early morning I drove west, away from the nearby shores of Turkey, parallel to the ridge of Dikeos mountain, which I see from my house in Tilos. I saw the turnoff to Pyli, where I’d spent a couple of weeks wandering while writing Wild Abandon. I passed a little vineyard where the people used palm branches over their fence to shield it from the road – as I’d now done around my garden. I stopped briefly to pick up a few supplies in Antimacheia. The road became quieter, the surroundings more rural as I neared the narrowest part of the island before Kefalos, and randomly picked a rough track to turn off and leave the car.

And there it was: the place I’d seen from above, a long stretch of pure, pale sand, with juniper-covered dunes and low, sandy hills behind and only a scattering of houses. Heaven! On a cloudy but warm Sunday in November, we had the stretch of beach to ourselves. The sand was clean, the sea clear, the sun trying to break through the clouds. With no sign of sheep or goats around, I let Lisa run, throwing a ball for her to chase. I took off my boots and we walked far along the beautiful, empty shore. As the morning wore on, we ran into a few locals: a woman who told me she’d stopped swimming for the year in October, a couple with a young child and two fishing rods stuck in the sand, another man with six fishing rods.

Beyond to the west, the headland of Kefalos at the far end of Kos rose up to four hundred metres and was deep green with trees. In the afternoon, I drove through the resort of Kampos and uphill to Kefalos village, under which a few caves in the rock were used for keeping chickens. I filled up my bottles with treated water at the Temak dispenser in the car park, and continued to see a little of the peninsula.

The sun came out as the road wound through hills and brought out all the colours of juniper and olive trees, heather and thyme bushes. I parked at Ayios Iannis Theologos and wandered along a track, enjoying a string of beaches with pure white sand and rippling blue sea, a breeze blowing from the north. There were farmers and the bells of goats and sheep.

Returning to the village, I picked up dinner, then I drove back down to the protected south-facing beach. Sunset was magnificent; it was a long, cool night, but Lisa and I were comfortable in the new tent, and it was wonderful to wake to sunrise and the gently lapping sea. It felt so peaceful and special to be there at that moment.

Before leaving this part of the island, I swam next to the ancient ruins on the edge of Kefalos-Kampos where years ago I swam out to the island. Then I wandered down another track and found Volcania winery surrounded by a beautiful, wild, open landscape. The sun was hot, someone was herding goats and their bells were ringing melodiously. In a farmyard with a few cows and chickens, a friendly man called his mother to show me around. Maria was around seventy and told me the area had all been farmland, divided up and given to the tsopanistes and agrotous, but then tourism came, and the work was easier, and most people gave up farming. She worked for twenty-five years for the local Club Med (!) and her husband kept the farm. I bought a few bottles of wine – it wasn’t certified organic but judging by the surroundings, it should be good – and wrenched myself away and to the road back east.

People were collecting olives and pruning their trees in the lovely countryside. I stopped and climbed a hill for a distant view of the impressive medieval fortress outside Antimacheia. There were tracks leading off in all directions and nothing at the end of them according to the map – I’d love to wander there some day.

When I saw a sign for Petra Marinou winery, I turned off the road and parked next to a coop of partridges and guinea fowl. The showroom was closed for the winter but the garage next door had a display. I picked up a few bottles of last year’s Chardonnay and Syrah for a good price as well as some new windscreen wipers and the man fitted them and agreed to check the radiator fluid for me. They’d have this year’s wine soon.

At last, I continued among now busy, fast traffic to Mesariano, finding it hidden behind a big Sklavenitis supermarket, pulled up in front of a beautiful marble Turkish fountain and was greeted by Nikos. It soon transpired that the perfect English in the emails was his son’s, so we spoke in Greek. Although he’d hoped to have plenty of time to show me around, he was busy with orders that morning as well as visitors at home – it was o nomos tou Merfi, he said: Murphy’s Law. I had a super-fast visit, and packed a few boxes of organic Cabernet and Merlot into the car.

Returning to Kos Town, I learned that most shops didn’t re-open on Monday afternoon. But what more did I need? I had a car full of wine, and had discovered some wonderful beaches. I ate again at the same place, where I arrived early and the waiter was making rakomelo and gave me a glass. I slept well, and early the next morning at the harbour I saw the orange sun rise from the sea. And what’s more, I was the only car getting on the Stavros ferry. ‘Tilos!’ shouted the crew to his mate. ‘Where do we put a car for Tilos?’

I wrote half this blog post while drinking a glass or two of the delicious Mesariano Grand Reserve (2017) two months later. I think I’ll need another trip there at some point. In the meantime, I've been finishing off my new book while doing more travels. Stay tuned...

 

From my winter notebook

It was about this day in late April that I first came to live on Tilos ten years ago. Ten years! That amazes me, but what’s really amazing is that the joy and excitement haven’t worn off. I no longer see things the way I did as a newcomer, but perhaps more than ever I feel awe and contentment with my life on a Greek island. 

I’ve been especially grateful this winter that I made it a priority to find a place I love, and one where I can continue learning every day. 

It has felt like a true taste of small island life. With travel impossible, this has been the first winter that many of us have spent entirely on the island. But it’s hard to believe I’ve done so much within this little area of land. It just shows, 64 square kilometres can be plenty, particularly when you have much of it to yourself.

My last trip off the island was thanks to the ongoing Brexit-related paperwork saga exacerbated by Covid. I needed passport photos, and the nearest option is Rhodes. At first I leapt at the excitement of travel, though of course I could only go for the day.

With the end of December deadline looming, I had to take a ferry that left at 3am during such a fierce storm the ferry couldn’t dock on first attempt. The rain turned the streets to rivers and it was still dark when I arrived, and even the harbour cafe wasn’t allowed to have people stay inside. A kind taxi driver insisted he take me somewhere, so I spent an hour or so walking very slowly around a supermarket that opened at 7am to kill time and stay dry, my glasses fogging up thanks to the mask. I finally got the photos – though have since been informed there’s an error and because the deadline has now passed I have to start again following a different procedure. Perhaps it’s a blessing in disguise, given how I look in those photos…

And of course, since then I’ve been on Tilos. 

Looking through the photos I've taken since January, I’m reminded of so many joyful moments… The bright moon about to come up over the mountain, seas varying from flat calm to crashing waves, flowers from narcissus and anemones and cyclamen to irises and Bermuda buttercups and freesias, my hair blown about in fierce winds, my skin red from cold seas, the spanakopita I made, the fig and vine leaves starting to return.

I’m thankful that all those years ago I started working for myself from home, and I had some nice editing projects to keep me occupied. One of my challenges over the winter was writing an article for The Guardian to promote Wild Abandon, re-writing and re-writing it as the circumstances surrounding travel changed, until I was sick of it - then being delighted when I finally got it right and it came out. I also did some new writing, and re-released Meeting Mr Kim on Kindle, and had an exciting email exchange with its new Bulgarian publisher.

 

Exploring the old terraces on the hills around my house several times a week with Lisa when the weather was cool or cloudy, I learned more about the flowers, especially the bee orchids. One afternoon, I found an injured hoopoe, a tiny bat and - thanks to Lisa leading me in a direction I wouldn't have taken otherwise - a tortoise. 

I’ve also become more familiar with the scattered ruins: cave shelters and houses and cisterns, the various chapels with their crumbling frescoes and ancient marble and wall markings. While Lisa hunted for rabbits, I kept my eyes to the ground for fragments of pottery with interesting markings. And one day I found a fine cup half-buried in earth, which was confirmed as Hellenistic – third century BC – by our visiting archaeologist and excavated for the new museum that’s still being built. (I’m not allowed to post a photo of the finding.)

I remember back in February walking a little way up the hill with Lisa, but turning back after a short time because the winds were too fierce and cold. When I returned to my house, I saw something unusual on the road. It was the heavy, iron, bird-shaped device that is usually attached to the top of my neighbour Sotiris’ chimney, and apparently it hadn’t been attached well enough. I wondered what might have happened if it had come flying at me. I told him it could have dented his car, and he took to parking the car in the field behind my house. 

Another day, the winds were so wild and cold, they stripped the leaves off plants and young trees here at the north end of the island. The snails and caterpillars meanwhile have done a fine job of removing the leaves off many of the vegetables. 

More recently we had a few days of Saharan dust covering the sky, along with plagues of insects, power cuts, and earth tremors – ‘moderate’ rumblings and shakings from a point between here and Nisyros, continuing for much of April. Antonis said in his seventy years on Tilos he’s never known anything like it. It's getting so I can tell how big they are (I think that last one was only a 3). There’s never a dull moment.

A couple of days ago, the sky was so clear, Nisyros and Kos and Kalymnos and Turkey were all visible on the horizon. Turning to take the road south, I walked past fields of blue cornflowers and oregano almost ready to flower. A thin black snake rippled across the road. Then I heard a distinctive breathy whistle, like a whip cutting through the air – bee-eaters? Sure enough, as I followed the track above the lush fields of Eristos, one flashed past me, close enough to see its black beak, its bright yellow and orange and metallic green-blue feathers.

The hillsides all had a bright yellow sheen amid the deep green from the spiny broom flowers. Halki and even Karpathos were clear on the deep blue horizon as I walked down to Ayios Petros. I swam with mask and snorkel and saw a small group of needlefish hanging in the water, curving their bodies into sickle-shapes and changing colour. When I looked up, a cormorant flapped away.

We’re heading into Greek Easter week and towards the celebration of May the First. Attempting a late afternoon walk on the familiar hillsides, it felt too hot to wear the long trousers necessary for wading through the thorny, prickly bushes – and I no longer needed to gather kindling for my woodburner, which I lit every night of winter. Bees were buzzing around the flowers, and I felt my chest tightening in what must have been an allergic reaction to some plant, so I came back, and instead went for my second swim of the day and watched a small moray raise its head and neck out of a hole in a rock.

Then I sat outside and watched a glowing sun sink towards the lower slopes of the mountain.