25/11/00-27/02/01
27/02/01
Regular readers
of this page will have spotted the new photo at the top of this page;
apparently the old one was 'unflattering'.....(this debate is still going
strong on the message board!)
Still looking to get the live chat page rolling-still a bit hit and miss at present. Maybe I should go for a particular day and time for people to go online and chat; any suggestions please e-mail me.
I've been writing up details of a new studio apartment for rent tonight, underneath Villa Afaia on the Kalistrata-should be up tomorrow, just waiting for the prices.
Adriana Shum is going to be writing a twice weekly weather report from Symi for this website and will also be doing a Greek phrase page for us.
23/02/01
I've re-written
the chat-page and put it up on the site tonight-lots of people have sent
me e-mails indicating their interest in a revival of the Symi Visitor chat
page, so let's see how it works this time. CLICK
HERE to chat live!!
I've also put a few more photos on my Symi photo album page; I don't want to put a link to it on the home page until it's finished, so here's a preview-Mike's photo album.
15/02/01
If you know Symi
at all, you might be interested to know that the Donkey Bar on the
Kalistrata is up for sale-if you are harbouring dreams of moving to
the island and buying a business or somewhere to live, have a look at our real-estate
page which I've re-written this week.
Got a nice letter-posted on 13/02/01!!- from Cobi Sanders today (see her Symi Watercolours here) enjoying the beautiful weather on the island after the thunder, rain and lightning of the first week in February. Included a picture she had taken of me and my son Matt back in August last year on the veranda of her house overlooking Symi harbour, both of us looking tanned and healthy and with big grins on our faces. Seems a long time ago and a long way away, but reminded me just how good I feel after a week or two on the island. Now where's that cheap flight website again........
I'm thinking about having another go at getting a chat page up and running-that's a real chat page where you can chat live online about Symi. I tried last summer but there weren't enough people around who knew about the website to make it viable-there are now! Although it's not linked from the site any more, it still exists here, so if you're interested, have a look, follow the instructions, tell some friends and we'll see if we can build an on-line community this time. Please e-mail me if you think it's worth pursuing.
CU L8R ;-)
8/02/01
The webcam is
currently offline at the moment I'm afraid-software problems
:-(
I've put the Valentine's message page up
tonight.
Have a nice weekend :-))
6/02/01
I've had several
e-mails asking for information on Symi's beaches; 'beach' is also the most
commonly used word on the site search page (see the search box on the home
page). To make the information more obvious, I've updated all the
beach pages on the site and grouped them together in a new beach
guide.
5/02/01
If you would like
to send someone a Symi Valentine
Day's message on this website then please CLICK
HERE!
31/01/01
Rain this morning
in Symi, but hot and sunny this afternoon....
I've uploaded this
month's 'Symi Visitor' newspaper front
page-also compressed the picture so should load much faster than previous
months' editions (78.9% faster, in fact).
It's here.
Also put up this month's home page with a new photo, of course.
Started to upload some of my photos of Symi which are lying around the place. I've only done one so far, but as usual, if you would like a sneak preview CLICK HERE
26/01/01
Interesting photo
I noticed on the webcam page this morning; bit of a traffic jam outside
the 'Visitor' offices, relatively speaking. The Symi bus, which in the
summer ferries holidaymakers up to Chorio and down to Pedi Bay and back,
doubles as the school bus in winter. The photo captures the bus coming
back from picking children up at the clock-tower. If it's today, you can
see it here, if it isn't (today, I mean), it's
on the January webcam archive page, which is
looking good now there's a few more photos on it. I try to pick out the
more interesting shots, which means I don't post a photo every day.
Talking of webcams, plans are in hand to put a camera up at Hotel Fiona in Chorio very soon, which means you'll have a panoramic view of the harbour to enjoy, 365 days a year!
22/01/01
Amazing what you find sometimes when you're tidying the place up-in my
website's case it's old pages I had written and forgotten about. So it was
that last weekend I came across one of the first pages I ever wrote for
the site way back in August '99 (and it looked like it). So I dusted it
off, polished it up and here it is looking like new:
Truly Ancient Greeks!
Put the January webcam photo archive up tonight; not many photos but it will build up gradually. Should be quite interesting seeing the different quality of light in the harbour as we move slowly out of winter towards the spring months.
The webcam's updating fine again after a few problems.
19/01/01
Wet in Symi yesterday with low cloud shrouding Mount Vigla. So windy this
morning that the Symi I ferry dithered until 10.30 until finally pulling
out of the harbour.
No updates to the webcam this week as Nik has been out and about on MKII.
I've finished updating the 2001 prices on the accommodation page, even the 'Windmill' (see below)
I've had some interesting correspondance from Australia from a lady trying to trace her relatives on Symi, so decided to put up a new message board on the site for just such a purpose. Coming soon, as they say.
14/01/01
I've been
starting to write a webcam archive page; just a collection of interesting
views taken in any one month. I haven't put a link to it on the site
and there's only a few photos on there yet, but if you would like a sneak
preview, CLICK HERE
Also been updating the accommodation
page with all the 2001 prices, nearly finished-just have to finish the
'Windmill' page, but every time I try to download it to change it, my
computer crashes. Weird! 
Thanks
to everyone who has sent me e-mail about the site recently-I really do
appreciate the kind comments!
10/01/01
Hope
you enjoyed the photo of the Symi 'bus' caught
driving past 'The Symi Visitor' office
this morning by our webcam; in case you missed
it, here it is again!
There's some more information about the bus timetable on our FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page, which is also HERE
7/01/01
Put the link to
the 'Links' page (still with me?) on the
'Home' page.
Wrote a new page with details on the new Mikros Kosmos II caique cruises running this year. Took ages.
www.symivisitor.com/mk2cruise.htm
Wrote a page with some photos of the path to Agios Nikolaos beach from Pedi Bay, goes like this.
As I was trying to find some good photos to put on the site, I went back to some I had taken on the caique in 1999 - first time I'd ever used a digital camera. Felt inspired to write a 'Guide to Greek Island Hopping' website. One day, maybe....
Oh, and I
found this; a photo of Symi harbour taken way back last century. Can you
guess the year? (Previous winners of this competition need not apply).
Back to work tomorrow :o(
02/01/01
E-mail from Adriana at the 'Visitor'
office:
"We had a twelve hour thunder/rain/hail storm
yesterday and there is an impressively high tide in the harbour this
morning."
The ferries are still running however.
I wrote a new 'links' page today; don't know where to put it yet....
30/12/00
Weather still bad
on Symi today (raining, as can be seen in the webcam
picture). Ferries running again-late however. No ferry services on New
Year's Eve/Day.
I've been busy; lots of updates today:
Put four new watercolours on Cobi Sander's 'Art from Symi' page, to replace the ones she's sold.
Also put a new map of the Dodecanese on the 'Caique Cruises' page.
Re-wrote the response form to the Mayor of Symi-added a few questions but haven't finished it yet (very complicated).
Searching around for a 'photo of the month' for January 2001; I don't like repeating myself so will try to find a new image tonight-even if it has to be one of mine!
28/12/00
High winds on Symi and in the Rhodes area have grounded ferries and planes
alike today. The webcam picture
looks calm enough.
Woke up to half a foot of snow this morning-the cat-flap was blocked and our two cats were not impressed; stared at me as usual as if I should be doing something about it.
Have been writing a 'How to be an independent traveller to Symi' page as indicated below-don't know if it's too superficial or not. Take a look and let me know if I need to include more detail:
www.symivisitor.com/gettingthere.htm
Also trying to get round to putting up a new version of the home page for New Year. This is the sign outside the town hall in Yialos at the moment:
24/12/00
Put the new 'Caique Cruises' page up today.
www.symivisitor.com/caiquecruises.htm
Finished my Christmas shopping this afternoon, so time to turn down the light on the computer, put my feet up and enjoy the festivities. Have a nice holiday.
19/12/00
Nik sent me some photos taken recently in Symi, including some of
Christmas/New Year decorations around
the place-I'll put them up on the site a.s.a.p. The photo on the right is
of a lamppost in the harbour taken this week.
If you are a subscriber to 'The Symi Visitor' newspaper, you may have noticed the advert for Caïque cruises on 'Mikros Kosmos II' (we used to run trips round the Dodecanese islands on her sister ship MK 1)-look out for details and photos on this site soon.
17/12/00
I've been putting some Christmas decorations on the site this
afternoon-found a nice Greek carol which I'd like to put on the site
somewhere, I just need to compress it a lot, otherwise it would take
forever to load.
The webcam is working perfectly at the moment; the picture is as big/sharp
as it's going to get, so enjoy!
15/12/00
Putting the 'Hellenikon' wine restaurant's menus up at the moment- I'm
using a new ftp program (how I get the stuff from my computer onto the
World Wide Web) which has speeded everything up tenfold :-)
14/12/00
I took the 'Visitors' poll' off the 'About Symi' page today. For the
record, the answers to the question Which is the best beach on Symi?
produced the following results from just over 800 respondents:
| 28% | Agios Nikolaos |
|
I
have also put some 'quick links' at the top of the page, as I've had
e-mail from people asking me to put some photos of Symi's beaches on
the site-they're there already, believe me! Hopefully, visitors to
the site will be able to find them more easily now.
|
| 9% | Agios Giorgios | ||
| 21% | Nanou | ||
| 2% | Nos | ||
| 11% | Pedi Bay | ||
| 28% | I don't know yet! |
11/12/00
The December 'Symi Visitor' newspaper front page went up tonight.
www.symivisitor.com/Dec2000.htm
I've
been trying to adjust the webcam picture settings to improve the image
over the last few days; unfortunately I've been decreasing the picture
quality by mistake instead of increasing it. Doh!
Will try to put things right tomorrow....
10/12/00
As a result of a
question on the notice board, I've put the prices of the ferries and
hydrofoil from Rhodes to Symi on our timetable page, something I should
have done ages ago really.
www.symivisitor.com/information.htm
Also been inspired to
write a 'How to be an independent traveller to Symi' page (if that doesn't
sound too patronising). Where to get the best and cheapest flights from,
what to do when you land in the middle of the night at Rhodes airport and
want to get a taxi to the harbour, which ferry to catch to Symi and where
to catch it from, how to find your accommodation when you get there-that
sort of thing.
Almost wrote some Christmas cards tonight....
8/12/00
As you may have already noticed, the webcam is pointing more
towards Chorio now, in fact what you can see over to the left of the
picture is very much the view in the photo of the month on the home
page. I know it needs sharpening up; we're working on it.
Adjusted some links in our real-estate (property for sale) section, so you can choose to visit www.doma.gr or the 'Symi Visitor' classified page.
As someone who hates the commercialisation of Christmas, I suppose I shouldn't mention this, but I've had a look round tonight for some decorations for the site - anyone remember last year's Christmas lights?
4/12/00
Updated the 'Guestbook' tonight; new look, new colour scheme. Very nice.
1/12/00
An e-mail from Glen (who sorted out the webcam software last summer)
points out that the modem in the new computer in the 'Symi Visitor' office
should be able to handle uploading a bigger image file from the camera
than it does presently (when the camera was set up we were working with a
33K modem). In other words, we should be able to make the picture clearer
and sharper. So I've e-mailed Nik with the details and we'll see if it
works in practice in the next few days.
I've put December's Symi-Rhodes timetable up here.
Looking around for a better photo of myself than the above, which looks like it was taken at three in the morning when I'd had a glass of wine or two-which it was :-)
30/11/00
Put the 'photo of the month' for December up - wish I could remember who
took it so I can credit their copyright. It'll come to me.
The webcam's been uploading fine for the past couple of days; sunny again on the island by the look of this morning's view.
Slowly changing all the 'phone numbers on the accommodation pages (very boring) and re-writing the 'Yialos' page with some nice new photos.
28/11/00
Not much today; just re-wrote the webcam page a bit-took out all the links
buttons etc. so you just get the photo and an explanation. Should really
change the 'phone numbers on all the accommodation pages (see yesterday's
news), but it will have to wait for the weekend, I've got too much marking
to do (I'm a teacher, by the way).
No new photo uploaded from the webcam today which means:
a) Nobody's been in the office
(unlikely).
b) It's broken (hopefully unlikely).
c) Wendy and Tony have been too busy finishing this month's 'Symi Visitor'
newspaper
(more than likely).
27/11/00
Forgot that the new Symi 'phone codes come into operation
today-just time to change the number on the home page and to put a
scrolling message up.
Symi area code number is now 0246.
Looking at the webcam photo uploaded this afternoon, it's raining again...
26/11/00
Wrote a climbing page
based on a report on Symi in 'High' magazine. Found it by chance while
looking for something completely different ('caiques' and 'Kalymnos' since
you asked). Features climbing routes on the cliffs behind Nanou beach.
www.symivisitor.com/climbing.htm
Webcam looks OK this morning; it's raining in Symi....
Got the webcam working again!! Well Nik did really (that's Nikos Halkitis, owner of the 'Symi visitor' newspaper) - discovered we were both online at the same time tonight so I e-mailed some instructions and had it up and running in 15 minutes. The office computer was infected by a particularly nasty virus a week or so ago, meaning the camera was off line for a while. Nik eventually bought a new computer and somehow managed to find a copy of the webcam software I'd left in the office last summer, installed it and we're back in business.
www.symivisitor.com/webcam.shtml
Jayjay, who originally got the webcam going last summer, has written a photobook so that we can have an archive of webcam pictures, just as soon as I get round to setting it up.
Wrote this page tonight, uploaded it, then went to see 'Memento'-great film.
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