My trip to Symi, an as yet not overrun island that's still jawdroppingly beautiful (though avoid July-August when up to 200 ships arrive daily). Very popular with moneyed Turkish yacht families.
Everywhere the views
Our house had a new family
The port is divided between Low and High Town
The departure point for the ferries leaving the island. Nearby is the police station, one whose buildings is now a small refugee camp where the residents are allowed to stand on the balconies and watch the world go by. Made friends with a tiny little girl and boy shouting the only words they knew in English over the parapet. Hello, hello?
At the top of the climb (and only at the top), there's a chain and a sign saying 'private property. No Entry'.
traditional Turkish sailing ships were everywhere, docking from Turkey that surrounds the island on three sides
Greece is famed for the wonders of its light, that makes colour glow clean and that's been attracting artists for centuries. The waters are said to be the world's bluest (though the Caribbean and Mozambique might have something to say about that).
An isolated cove with an empty monastery
The boat is named 'Pizza'.
Food was superlative and cheap, Greek salad in literally every meal
These hillsides are riddled with wild herbs (oregano, sage, thyme, Greek mountain tea), and very expensive rocks should the Chinese market for classical garden rockeries ever discover them. They can fetch thousands for the right shape.
This is how cean, clear and blue even the harbour was on this cove
She's standing where I was watching the fish
Crosses denote unfortunate shipwrecks
Another monastery complex, much larger and the size of a town was utterly empty of people. Quite surreal
Inside every Greek church is a blizzard of Orthodox intricacy and iconostasis
