The surprising island of Symi
A port overflowing with elegant sailing ships, a quayside lined with trendy shops and fishermen's taverns, a village of neoclassical houses that seem to have been painted by a child on the steep slope, with their sparkling pastel colours and unusual sloping roofs with gable facades. An unusually chic sea port for an islands of the Aegean, where neither churches with blue domes nor the classic white cubic houses burnt by the sun have found a place.
The port of Symi, Gialos, does not hide the historical Italian domination, which has left the most fascinating mark of the Dodecanese here.
We arrive by ferry from Rhodes in the middle of the afternoon and already from the sea you can admire the amphitheatre of the port surrounded by characteristic houses. Our accommodation is located at the top of the promontory, beyond the ridge, and looks behind the town. Every point of the town is suitable to begin the exploration of this jewel: the houses, which at a first look from the sea seem one-dimensional, as if painted on a canvas, are separated by endless stairways and steep streets that converge towards the port. It seems almost impossible to get to the pier, because at every step you need to stop to admire a house, a door, a colorful balcony of the most vivid shades: blue, pink, green, red, and when you think you have seen every possible nuance, you are surprised by fences in lavender, yellow and blue steps, orange tympanums.
We proceed towards the valley through a main road that climbs up the southern side of the port, intuitively and sometimes getting lost in some secondary alleyway. What seems to be an inhabited center turns out to be in many places a cluster of majestic and abandoned houses, and there are only a few that give the impression of being lived. Someone paints in the shade of a doorway, someone reads on the balcony overlooking the sea, someone sits outside the door and watches the sparse passers-by. Life proceeds silently and slowly in the calli of this village, until you reach the quay that runs along the entire port in the shape of a horseshoe.
Here you enter another world: super luxurious yachts, eccentric and high fashion furniture shops, alternating with classic Greek taverns with tables covered with checkered tablecloths that invade the carriageway of the road that follows the port. The people walking are not the classic tourists returning from the beach, but elegant middle-aged couples who seem out of context. Yet, it seems that Symi, from what we read in the guides, is a destination for heirs and vips, although we can not personally confirm this indiscretion.
On the opposite side of the bay, after the last boutique, you return again in the most familiar sequence of colorful houses and abandoned ruins, and climb a steep staircase to a monastery from which you can admire the port from another perspective.
The ridge of the mountains surrounding the port is dotted with some old windmills.
The greatest challenge is to reach the many white churches that dot the town, apparently reachable, but wedged so much in the maze of houses that it is difficult to orient yourself without getting lost in the steep alleys. And try to find the castrum that dominates the mountain, without using a map: if you do not get lost, you will be rewarded by a picturesque view of the port and the distant horizon.
