Syros Greece 2015

Beautiful Greek Island Gem in the Aegean Sea

Somehow, when we arrived here, we felt that we finally had found our spot in Greece… realized our dreams of cruising the Med. After speaking with our new Greek sailing friend Dino, we decided that we needed to rethink our plans for hurrying up into the Ionian islands and then up to Croatia and Venice in August. He said it was extremely crowded (more so than in the Aegean!) and very, very expensive. We really love it here and before you know it, we decided we were tired of pushing hard and sailing uphill just to make it to Venice this season. Dino highly recommended we not rush out of the Aegean and we’re going to take his advice. Sýros is a wonderful spot… Finikas, on the southwestern coast of the island, is not touristy, yet there are several great restaurants and a market that has everything we need. The mooring we’re on is bullet-proof and so we’re sleeping well, confident that the boat is okay (we aren’t dragging and neither are our neighbors!) There are buses that take you over to the main town of Ermoúpolis on the east coast. That’s a wonderful town, bigger and more touristic, but still has a great feel and lovely Venetian architecture, cobbled stone streets, windy alleys, great cafes and a free in-town bus to take you all around if you don’t feel like walking.

So, here we are, totally smitten with Sýros Island and happily moored by Finikas. We’ve put up the “boat ‘brellie” (the canvas cover to keep the sun off the cabin top) and relaxed with the idea of spending maybe a few weeks here. The Meltemis (strong Greek summer winds) are going to kick in again in another two days and we’ll just stay here until the next lull and then decide whether or not we want to go anywhere then.

Sat 25th July
We took the “clockwise” bus into Ermoúpolis, the main town and capitol of the Cyclades Island group. There’s also an “anti-clockwise” bus which goes by the beach resorts in the south, so we’ll need to try that one on another adventure into town. It’s 30 minutes to town and 1.40 euros/pp. We walked along the waterfront, chatted with some folks on a yacht tied to the quay (long enough to decide we absolutely didn’t want to bring the boat over here), took a free city bus up to a great vista point, and then walked down to find a cafe.

We happened upon “Belle Epoque” (above photo left) a tiny cafe off the main square in front of the town hall. Eric, the owner, was delightful to speak with. He’s half French and half Greek, so his Greek coffee and croissants were excellent, as was his special egg dish. He prepares everything with local ingredients and with loving care. My first Greek coffee was splendid and he let me watch him as he created this work of art. Every part of the process was exact, down to the number of stirs clockwise and anti-clockwise so that the coffee wouldn’t spin in the pot. You could tell how much pride he took in serving the best quality, and we enjoyed sitting outside and relaxing with our brunch.

Afterwards, we walked back up the hill where the bus had taken us, stopping off to see the Apollo theater (unfortunately we had missed the opera festival). We continued up the hill further to get to the famous St. George Greek Orthodox church, where we met Antonio (Anthony Quinn, as he said we’d be able to remember his name better!) the priest. He invited us to join him at a service later that evening at another church, higher up in the hills, but we were afraid we’d miss the bus back at 9pm and then have to wait for the midnight bus. Maybe we’ll go another evening as long as we’re staying a while.

Tuesday 28th Jul
I took the bus into Ermoúpolis on my own to wander around. On Saturday when we were in town, we walked past a storefront where they were doing sewing and alterations. It somehow looked good to me and so today I brought several items that needed repair and altering. I also went looking at frames for glasses, since I have an extra set of lenses for reading glasses I had gotten in Marmaris. I saw some nice but very expensive ones at a shop. I decided to “marinate” on it before spending a lot of money. I’m glad I did, as I found another little shop (not so upscale) which had some cute frames and would only cost 25 Euros with my own lenses. Done. Both clothing and glasses should be ready on Saturday. The rest of the day I just walked around the nice streets and alleys, browsed the artsy shops and enjoyed meandering.

Thursday 30th Jul
We headed back to town today to visit the Industrial museum, which would have been more interesting had they presented any of the information in English. Still, we enjoyed looking at the machinery and models of boats and diesel engines. We decided to sit and have a stevia-sweetened lemonade on the green in front of the town hall, then proceeded on to the Cyclades Art Gallery, which was having a special exhibition of boating and sea-related paintings on loan from the National Gallery (I presume in Athens). It was small, but nice to see. We went back to Belle Epoque for lunch, and enjoyed meze plates. We had cheeses, sausages, salads, dips and bread all for 9 euros… We thought Eric had tallied the bill wrong, but he said that was right. Good deal! One of the sausages was so good that we asked Eric where we could get it. He told us and we walked to the butcher on the other side of town. It turns out that it is the traditional sausage of Sýros and is delicious (though nothing can compare to the “Gamekeepers” sausage from the market at Manly AU). We walked back to catch the bus… It was hot… And even hotter on the bus. It was a whopping 44 degrees on the bus with the aircon going. We were melting and almost got off the bus before it even left. We didn’t though, and as soon as we got back to the boat and I put away our purchases we jumped into the water. Refreshing!

Saturday 1st Aug
I went into town to pick up my alterations and reading glasses and just explore again. I had a grand old time and when I got back at 3:30PM Roger said we were going back into town that evening with Dino, Ellie, Taxos (sp?) and Iros (sp?) for dinner at a vegetarian restaurant for falafels and then an open air concert in front of the town hall. We had such a lovely evening. The music was great, with a delightfully purple-clad opera singer performing traditional Greek songs.

Monday 3rd Aug
We were invited to join our new group of Greek friends, increased by two… Theodoro and Sophia on another boat, for fish dinner at a local restaurant here in Finikas. We sat at a table right on the harbor front and enjoyed many plates of veggies and fish. The weather was perfect and the company was lovely. One of the many plates was tiny little fish deep fried and the local kitties were happy to be hand-fed by us (but mostly by Roger). Everyone decided that the following night would be a group “pot luck” dinner of Greek specialties. Sophia is a cook and has written two cookbooks, and we were delighted to be the hosting boat for the gathering.

Tuesday 4th Aug

We had a leisurely day (they’re all delightfully that way these days!) and a swim, then a back-deck shower at 6PM, giving us enough time to prepare for our guests arriving at 8PM. We had a wonderful evening… four couples in the cockpit with Greek delights. I put out cheese and nuts as appetizers and each of the other boats brought a Greek dish… cheese pie, cheese, pepper and I’m not sure what else, and a lentil dish with onions.

Theodoro prepared a fabulous yogurt dessert with nuts and berries and honey. It was so rich! We found out he adds marscapone cheese to it… so that’s the trick!

We discussed plans for the following day and are going to rent scooters for two days, from 6PM tomorrow so we can drive into town and back for dinner and an outdoor quarry concert, then have the scooters to explore the following days before returning them at 6PM two days later. We are so enjoying the company of our new Greek cruising friends. Roger especially is developing a great friendship with Dino, the gentleman who is responsible for our complete change of plans! 🙂

Wednesday 5th Aug
We picked up the scooters at about 5pm and then headed into town for a bite of dinner at “Grill” a great little spot on the harborfront for Gyros and such. It really was very good. Then we headed up to the old quarry where we enjoyed a fantastic open-air concert. A famous composer and three other well-known singers were there to perform until very late. I couldn’t believe how late they played. The music was wonderful and traditional – very Greek. Each of the singers were great in their own way. One of them, a 71-year old woman had a powerful voice and belted out the tunes like you wouldn’t believe. We didn’t get back to the boat until 1AM. I think we’re shifting to “Greek time”… Getting to bed no earlier than midnight, sleeping late and taking a siesta in the afternoons.

Thursday 6th Aug
Our scooter had some sort of problem and kept cutting out, so we waited an hour in the morning before they came with another scooter for us. We then headed into town for a coffee and traditional Greek pastry… Fresh out of the oven. One with feta cheese and another with sweet cream filling (something much better than either Bavarian creme or the normal white fluffy stuff). We ran some errands in town and then grabbed a gyro at the same place we ate the previous evening. We (FINALLY) got to try an ice cream at Daidada, supposedly the best on the island, and it was! They even had my favorite: coconut. It had been made just one hour before and it tasted delicious.

After lunch we scootered up to Ano Syros, the medieval town up above Ermoúpolis and walked to the cathedral of St. George on top.

We met Dino and Ellie at 5pm and took a lovely scooter tour of the northern part of the island. It is barren and desolate, but beautiful in its own way. We worked our way back through town and then down to the southern coast where we met Sophia and Theodoro, Iro and Takis, at a beach-side restaurant. Sophia, being a chef, instinctively knew what to order and everything was marvelous. We’re going to need to get back to our normal eating routine before too long, as we’ve been eating out and plentifully these past days. We both felt though that taking advantage of going with this great group of Greek “locals” was the thing to do. We’ll have plenty of time on our own again eventually.

Sunday 9th Aug
We joined our friends for another concert. This one was even better than the others with a fine orchestra and a group of wonderful singers. The songs were all in Greek save one, in English. Some of them had almost a caberet sound while others were soulful. Each one was great. The venue was an old mansion on the opposite side of the bay from where we were moored and we walked about a half hour each way along the coast.

Monday 10th Aug
We headed into Ermoúpolis with the group to do some provisioning as we are finally going to attempt to tear ourselves away from Sýros and our marvelous mooring (at least for a little while… we might be back!) We went to a small art exhibit and visited the Church of the Dormition, where an early work of El Greco from the 1500’s is housed. After returning to the boat and enjoying a little swim-about, we went with Dinos and Ellie back to the other side of the bay for dinner at a local taverna. Garlic dip, Greek salad, grilled lamb chops, Greek beer… All good. Tomorrow we’re off to Delos, the center of the ancient world!