Rhodes; Sunday, 17 October, 2021

I’d booked an all day boat cruise to the island of Symi – about 90 minutes sailing time away from Rhodes, and whilst the boat didn’t depart until 09:00 everyone was strongly urged to be at the boat by 08:30 to guarantee a good seat, so I set my alarm for 07:00 to give me enough time to get up, have breakfast and walk the 20 minutes down to the harbour. The other reason to get up early was to get all the paperwork completed for my return journey as I had to complete a full UK passenger locator form (which took 20 minutes) wait for that to come back with a QR code and then upload both that and my vaccine certificate to the British Airways site so they could verify my documents and let me checkin online later that day. Paperwork and Breakfast completed I headed out of the hotel a little before 8.

It was about 08:15 when I arrived at the port, but there were still about 30 people ahead of me already on the boat, but I still managed to grab a good seat for the trip. On the dot of 9am we pulled away from the harbourside and headed out under where the Colossus of Rhodes would have once stood and out into the Aegean Sea.

The island of Symi is the closest island to Rhodes, but getting there you pass along a stretch of the Turkish coastline that is part of Asia Minor. It’s very odd to think that you’re looking directly at a large chunk of Asia whilst travelling between two European islands.

First stop of the morning was the southern town of Panormitis, this small settlement has a sheltered harbour and a large monastery which is the main purpose of the town. Consequently at least once a day this small settlement suddenly gets a couple of hundred tourists pouring through it for about an hour – streaming into the monastery and visiting the harbour side café, before all heading back onto the boat to continue the journey.

After Panormitis we backtracked along the South coast of Symi before turning and sailing up the East coast, including a quick detour into St George’s bay for a quick photo stop before arriving in the main town of Symi, also called Symi – or just harbour to the locals.

We had just over three hours here, so after a bit of a wander around the town I found a nice little taverna and had a very pleasant lunch looking out across the harbour and to all the housed stacked up neatly up the sides of the steep hills that surround the town. There are archaeological remains and a museum located in the village high on the cliffs above the harbour, and there is an hourly bus that takes you up there, but by the time I’d finished my very pleasant lunch I’d missed the 2pm bus and the 3pm wouldn’t give me enough time to get back down.

So instead I wandered round the harbour and had a bit of a walk through the back streets, before heading to the main square and catching the Noddy Train – that was it’s actual name – a small Land Train (engine and one car) that takes you for a ride along the harbour and then up the side of the next bay for some stunning scenery, before returning back to the centre of town. As most of the passengers were from the boat the driver made an additional stop on the return journey to let us all get off right by the boat, just as boarding was starting with a free-for all on seats for the return journey, so I was able to get a really good seat right at the front of the open top deck.

From Symi the boat returns directly back to Rhodes, taking just over 90 minutes to make the journey, along the way we were overtaken by the high speed catamaran that can do the journey in about an hour.

Back in Rhodes I went for a little wander along the harbour, and down to the St Nicholas fortress which is now a lighthouse close to where the other side of the Colossus statue would have stood. After taking in the fort and the harbour side, along with the windmills, I wandered back through the New Market – Nea Agora – before heading back to the hotel.

I arrived at the beach by the hotel just in time for a stunning sunset so I was able to enjoy that for a little while before the light fully faded, and then I crossed the road over to the hotel to freshen up and then head down for my final dinner, and to checkin for my flight – only to find that despite having submitted all my paperwork, and it all being verified and confirmed as correct by BA, they still wouldn’t issue boarding passes as all the paperwork had to be show again at the checkin desks the following day…