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Symi (Σύμη) is a small Dodecanese island in the South Aegean, a short sail north of Rhodes and within sight of Turkey's Datça peninsula. It is rocky, dry and deeply indented, and most of its 2,600 or so residents live in one town wrapped around a narrow bay. At the water is Gialos (Γιαλός), the port, and above it climbs Chorio (Χωριό), the older upper quarter.
The town is the reason most people come. Its houses date largely from the 1800s, the prosperous decades of sponge fishing and shipbuilding, and they share one neoclassical vocabulary: symmetrical façades, pediments, shuttered windows and colourwash from apricot to duck-egg blue. Building controls protect that palette. Between the restored homes stand empty shells, left when islanders emigrated in the 20th century. A long stepped path joins port and upper town, passing mansions and small chapels on the way to the ruins of the Knights' castle, built over Symi's ancient acropolis. Wooden caiques are still built and mended in the Charani yards at the harbour's north end.
The island's story reaches back to Homer, whose Iliad lists a king of Syme among the Greek leaders at Troy, and forward to 1945, when the German surrender of the Dodecanese was signed in the harbour. Our journal piece on Symi tells these stories at greater length, along with the island's myths.
Beyond town, Symi turns quiet. A single road and a network of old footpaths cross uplands of cypress and juniper to remote monasteries and bays. The largest, Panormitis, dedicated to the Archangel Michael, protector of sailors, sits on its own harbour in the south and draws pilgrims every November. Walkers can reach the monastery of Roukouniotis, the coast at Toli or Nanou, or the fishing hamlet of Pedi.
Beaches here are coves rather than long strands, mostly pebble and often reached only by boat. In season, water taxis leave Gialos each morning for bays such as Agios Georgios Dysalona, Marathounda and Nanou, where the water is clear and deep.
At table, look for the island's small fried shrimp, fresh fish, wild herbs and thyme honey, served in tavernas along the quay and in Pedi.
Getting there means going via Rhodes. Catamarans and ferries cross from Rhodes town in about an hour, Rhodes airport has direct summer flights from across Europe, and some ferries from Piraeus call at Symi on their way through the islands.
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