Saturday - St.Nikolas
It’s all happening. We were up and had breakfast, did the photos, finished the Friday blog and were walking round to the harbour by 09:15.
Another ATM visit due to the bank placing a security withdrawal limit of €300 a day on us and whilst many more places than ever accept payment by card, cash remains king. A tourist in front spent too long counting the notes that the machine had dispensed and so his card was swallowed. The only advice we could give was to suggest he waited for the bank to open and see what could be done but we feared that once swallowed that was it. It happened to D last year and he now knows to take the notes then the slip and then grab the card quickly and then sort everything out.
We wandered round and got our tickets for the 10am taxi boat to St.Nicks. 5 people got off at Ag.Marina and another 5 at St.Nicks leaving around 8 on the boat - things are quietening down. Ö&L’s neighbours from Sweden were having their last day and were on the same boat so we are able to have a chat and say our farewells later in the day.
Our Welsh friends and Symi regulars, D&G, were in their usual spot so everything seemed right except that in three weeks this was our first visit to D’s favourite beach - where has the time gone.
The temperature was perfect, the swimming was excellent and we had our frappé in the small bar area and had a chat with Michalis and his family. A read and some sun and then lunch of Greek salad, pita bread & tzatziki, and a superb grilled fresh calamari. We love lunch at St.Nicks.
We caught the 16:10 taxi boat back and encountered a wedding setting off from outside Cafe Aiglios with everyone in their immaculate outfits and we stopped to watch the beautiful bride set off in her taxi.
We had a beer stop and catch up with Giorgios in the Corner Cafe but needed to head home as we had decided to go up one last time and say farewell to Yiannis and others in the village. As we rounded Hirani we bumped into George of Alexandros Jewellery fame and his wife and made arrangements to meet them the following day.
We headed round for the 7pm bus as we did not think we could rely on taxis in light of the big wedding. However we must have hit the right time as the taxi rank was full and we were nipped up to the Village Hotel in no time at all and then the all too familiar walk to Yannis Rainbow where the usual appeared in double quick time but “our” usual seats were taken - but not for long and we were moved
Our dear friend E who has the boutique opposite Giorgios is closing down at the end of the week which is a bit sad but she was in very good humour and has plans ! We are sure that whatever she does she will be a success. Several people were grabbing the bargains on offer so E not wanting to miss out ........
It was great to see S&L who had had another very successful gig, this time as part of a Poseidon outing. It seems we always meet them at awkward times and we vowed to make time next year for a proper catch up.
We had thought of options for dinner in advance and it was between Giorgios and Haritomeni but as we learned that the wedding reception was in the latter Giorgios it was for the last time this visit.
It was pretty busy which was good to see. We ordered a mezes of a new style beetroot salad which came in a garlic mayo with walnuts and apple, garlic mushrooms, imam and as they had run out of moussaka we had the alternative; the papoutsakia which was very different from the one we had had the previous night in Tholos and we have to say that the Giorgios version won by a short head. By the way we need to correct an error in our dining reporting as the complimentary sweet at Tholos the previous evening came with a delicious carrot jam and not shredded orange as D had surmised (thanks go to our neighbours S&J for pointing this out).
So from Giorgios we headed down to the Kiosk, said kalanikta to the woman who was closing up at 22:45 having been there since 06:00 and then we took the “long” bus journey down to Pedi, back up to the kiosk and then down into Yialos. Then a very pleasant walk round the harbour where there was a batch of very handsome motor cruisers outside a very busy Elpida’s.
And another fantastic day on Symi ended.