Hiking and Easter celebration on Symi

Hiking to Monastery of Life Giving Fountain

From our boat we could see the monastery up in the hill, and wanted to do a hike up there. We didn`t found this trail on alltrails.com, but saw on the map it should be a path from the beach. The startingpoint is at the same place as we started to walk up to old town.

After a while we went to the left, passing by a small church. Before coming up to a small farm we walked to the left again. It was not possible to see if it was actually a path there, but we tried..

I think that in the summer it would not be possible to walk here because you would not see the path.

We passed by the Ancient Fortification Drakos, but we didn` t go inside. It is not much to see there.

From the path we had a beautiful view to the old town.

Many nice flowers and the smell of herbs.. We picked some oregano.

When we come up in the hill we came to a road and we passed by a farm.

Almost every family has a church, so there is many of them!

We walked through the forrest from Pedi Bay.

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We walked up to the main road and walked a couple of serpentine turns before we took off the main road on the left side. There is a big church in the beginning of this road so you can`t walk wrong. It was people in the graveyard so I didn`t take photos there. We met theese goats on our way. They were curious about us 🙂

The concrete road continues in the hill.

A nice view down to the old town and to Pedi Bay, where we started this hike.

And a lot of stones…

Unfortunately when we arrived at the monastery it was not possible to get inside. But we had at least a hike!

They don`t need much soil to live…

We walked back to the main road and entered the old town. This is a place you can walk for hours. It is so many interesting things, narrow streets and old buildings to see.

You have to imagine how it was for the kids to run around in theese streets.

The beautiful church of Agiou Athanasiou

Inside the church

Through the narrow streets

Has been a beautiful staircase once..

Can you see the monastery up there?

This flower (I wrote about it in the last post) can be really huge!

Here is the aroundtrip we had:

A video from this nice hike:

The next day we were ready for a new hike. This time we took the bus to the town and started to walk from the harbour. And it is one thing to say; it is up, and up, and up… step by step…

But when you are going up a steep hill you are awarded with amazing view pritty soon!

And we were thinking about all the people who had walked the same steps to their houses…

You can see all the steps from the bottom of the town

The view to the town (left) and to Pedi bay (right), old town in the middle.

Spring, and perfect temperature for hiking!

I can`t get enough of this beautiful town!

We are up in the hill and have finished the hardest part of this trail.

In the background you can see Türkiye, not far away!

This trail is on the northern part of the island and here we are on the northwestern part. Also Türkiye in the background.

We were thinking about going down to the bay it the end of the road, but we had still a distance to walk, and we met Liza and Frits (from our neighboar boat) on the bus, and invited them for dinner, so suddenly we didn`t had the whole day for walking.

After walking on the main road for a while we had to find the trail again, and that was not easy. We actually passed it and had to walk back a little bit to find it. On the video down below you can see where it started.

A beautiful area to walk through and a lots of herbs! I can`t tell you what this is, we found it in the middle of the trail.

It was almost impossible to see this small turtle on the path, so cute 🙂

Here we are on the eastern side, this bay looked so beautiful, but we didn`t had the time to go down there. We had a plan to go there later.

The trail is going up in the hill.

When we came close to the town we lost the trail but we found another one, so finally we were back on track!

A video from the hike:

We had a plan to leave Symi at this point, but then Frits and Liza told us about the easter celebration in the town and we decided to go there.

The easter celebration on Symi is really huge and there is at least two fireworks as we saw. But for a weeks or two it is dynamite and firecrackers every day. Friday evening it was a firework from the old town:

Then we had a day with bad weather so we stayed in the boat the whole day.

Sunday it is the big Easter Finale! Be prepared! First we had a short walk in the harbour, just to see what was happening. I wear a dress my mother knitted for me and sent to Cyprus when we were there. I really liked it, thanks mum!

There is a steep stair in the harbour and we had to check it out. We saw a lot of people going up there, but they also came down again the same way. It just stopped in front of a private house.

From the top of the stair.

Quite steep!

No comment!

Sunday morning in it was still quiet.

Maybe a lot of people went to church…

Or they were grilling a lamb. The Mayor of Symi offered 20 lambs for grilling, and the whole community was invited to taste.

After tasting the lamb (which was excellent), we were invited over to Liza and Frits` boat. Their friend Marilyn (living on Symi), had made a traditional greek dish for us. Her kids was also there. It was delicious!

And later that evening it was dancing and a huge firework!

You can also check out the video Frits made from the celebration:

The next day we only went ashore to get bread and on the way back to the boat we found this beautiful stair!

And then it was time to leave Symi! It has been an amazing week there and we would love to come back one day. It was also very nice to get to known Liza and Frits. Maybe we will meet again…