Symi built its wooden ships in the age of its sponge and trading wealth. The small Dodecanese island turned its shoreline into a working boatyard, where shipwrights shaped keels and hulls from raw timber. The island’s yards launched the caiques, sponge boats and cargo ships that carried its trade. The craft grew beside the sponge … Read more
Symi offers clear, deep water that suits both snorkelling off the rocks and scuba diving from a boat. The small Dodecanese island sits in a bright, salty sea where visibility runs long and the water turns deep close to the shore. Dive centres based in the harbour of Gialos run boat trips out to reefs, … Read more
Symi keeps a full Orthodox religious calendar, and its feasts run from Easter in the spring through the summer panigyria to the great feast of the Archangel Michael at Panormitis Monastery in November. Easter stands as the most important date, with candlelit processions of the Epitaphios through Gialos and Chorio on Good Friday and the … Read more
Symi neoclassical architecture defines the face of this small Dodecanese island. Tall mansions painted in ochre, deep red, pink, blue and pastel rise in tiers around the harbour of Gialos and climb the hill of the old town of Chorio. Merchants and captains built them in the nineteenth century from the wealth of sponge diving, … Read more
Agios Emilianos is a small whitewashed chapel that stands on a tiny islet just off the west coast of Symi, in the Dodecanese. A short stone causeway links the islet to the shore, and visitors cross it on foot to reach the chapel door. The islet sits in a sheltered bay with clear, calm water … Read more
Symi keeps a network of old stone footpaths, the kalderimi, that once tied the town to farms, chapels, monasteries and hidden bays. These paved mule tracks crossed the bare interior long before the coast road, and walkers now follow them to cross the island on foot. The routes climb from the upper town, run over … Read more
The Monastery of the Archangel Michael Roukouniotis is the oldest monastery on Symi, an island in the Dodecanese between Kos and Rhodes. Known in Greek as Taxiarchis Michail Roukouniotis, it stands in the hills southwest of Chorio, the upper village above the harbour. The complex honours the Archangel Michael, the Taxiarch and commander of the … Read more
Agia Marina is a small beach on the northeast coast of Symi, set near the fishing bay of Pedi. A tiny islet lies a short distance offshore, and a white chapel of Agia Marina stands on the rock. Swimmers reach the islet by wading through shallow water or by a short swim across the channel. … Read more
Symi built its nineteenth-century wealth on sponge diving and the sponge trade. The small Dodecanese island sent a large fleet across the Aegean and down to the North African coast to work the seabeds for natural sponges. Profits from the trade paid for the neoclassical mansions that ring the harbour and the upper town, and … Read more
Nanou is one of the largest beaches on the east coast of Symi, set at the mouth of a green valley of pine and tamarisk. Grey pebbles line the long shore, and the water drops away fast into deep, clear blue. Most visitors arrive by taxi-boat from Gialos, the main harbour, on a ride of … Read more