Month: May 2020

Greece Opening Up

Today’s the big day.  The coffee shops, restaurants, gyros bars and tavernas are allowed to open for the first time since mid-March.  Those businesses that have decided to reopen today have been a flurry of activity with tape measures to ensure that the correct spacing is maintained for the placement of tables and chairs.  On the beaches, umbrellas are being dug in at the approved spacing which, on Symi, is actually not to different to previous years.

At this stage only a handful of businesses on Symi have opted to re-open now.  It costs a lot to stock and staff a taverna or restaurant and once you are open for business, the meter starts running on a lot of overheads.  Some business owners are still stuck in other countries or parts of Greece as a result of the various travel restrictions and need to make their way back to Greece.  Likewise staff may also be in the wrong places and still need to get their health papers sorted out before they can start work.  As the country does not open to international tourism of any kind for another 3 weeks, there really isn’t any need to rush.

Today is also the day when people can start travelling on the ferries again.  Both of these sound quite straightforward but in reality there is quite a lot of bureaucracy involved including filling in a health form before being able to buy ferry tickets, social distancing on the boats so they are only travelling with half capacity and masks to be worn.  Only one person per cabin unless they are members of the same family.

There are also still a lot of restrictions in place regarding vehicle transport.  Meanwhile hoteliers, camp site owners and all the others involved in tourism in any shape or form are wading their way through 20 pages of instructions from the Ministry of Tourism concerning cleaning protocols, social distancing requirements, swimming pool hygiene, transfers of tourists from A to B and so on.  We may be sure that this summer there will be inspectors for everything – there usually are!

Meanwhile it is still unknown where the tourists will come from to use these facilities.  Aside from the fact that many people are wary of travelling at the moment, even if they can, there are still travel restrictions of one sort or another in place, either at the Greek border or out-going/in-coming for other countries.  The Greek government has said that they will be issuing a list at the end of this month of the first wave of nationalities that will be welcome to visit Greece, based on epidemiological criteria.  We shall have to wait and see.

Symi Sponges On Line

I am sure that we all agree that 2020 has been a strange year thus far and that there are likely to be far-reaching changes ahead for how we do things. Greece has been fortunate in that the New Democracy government under Mitsotakis responded rapidly to the outbreak of the novel corona virus known as Covid-19 with the result that Greece is now able to tentatively reopen to international tourism on 1 July.  The Byzantine rules and regulations that will be accompanying that are still being hammered out, including from which countries people will be allowed to travel, so that is the subject for a later post.

On a small island like Symi tourism in its various forms is the main revenue stream and local entrepreneurs have had to look at different ways of doing business in these days of travel restrictions, complex bureaucracy and job losses. Turning to on-line marketing is one way.  Today’s post is the first of a number I shall be doing to promote locals who have reinvented themselves through on-line marketing in these challenging times.  

Anyone who has visited Symi in the last 30 years will most likely have bought at least one sponge from Panormitis’ Symi Sponges, either from his original shop on the waterfront in Yialos or his new one, further back off the square. In keeping with changing times you can now buy quality sponges, pumice stones, loofahs and body butter on line through their new website.

Prices are quoted in euros but you can order from anywhere internationally or in the EU and prices include shipping. Payment is through PayPal or bank transfer. You can also order gift packs to surprise a special someone in your life.  As an early bird promotion, if you order now you will receive a free facial sponge with every order of body butter.

Even if you are missing your usual annual pilgrimage to Symi you can still buy your favourite souvenir and help support a traditional Symi family business.  You can find Symi Sponges here and on Facebook.

Coming Out of Quarantine

On Monday 4 May the first steps began to ease up on the measures first implemented on 29 February to contain the spread of Covid-19 in Greece.  We no longer have to send an SMS or carry a permit to be allowed out of our homes – unless we have just returned from somewhere else in which case the strict 14 day police-controlled quarantine still applies, in which event no amount of paperwork allows you out until the days are done.  Smaller shops where numbers can be easily controlled have been allowed to re-open. This includes bookshops, electronics shops, hardware shops, shoe shops and clothing shops.  In the case of the latter, strict regulations are in force to prevent clothes from being contaminated and you really need to know your size as trying things on is not allowed at this point.  More shops will be allowed to open on 11 May.

Masks must be worn in enclosed places including public transport such as buses, trains, the metro and so on.  This last isn’t much of an issue on Symi.  The bus has been mothballed for the duration and Lakis is using one of his hire cars – with one passenger at a time, travelling on the back seat.  Unnecessary journeys are still frowned upon and it is not permitted to travel between islands or outside ones prefecture for the time being.  Drivers are now allowed to have two passengers in their vehicles now, instead of one.  Gatherings are still limited to a maximum of 10 people and are generally still discouraged.  We can go swimming but not at organised beaches and not in large groups.  There are still restrictions in place regarding private boats and amateur fishing as the authorities don’t want anyone sneaking off to other islands or travelling illegally between the mainland and the islands, potentially taking the virus with them.

15 May is the day when it will be decided how the country goes forward as by that point it will be clear if there has been an up-tick in infections as a result of increased mobility and social interaction.

Restaurants and cafes may be allowed to open on 1 June, if all goes well. This would be with reduced clientele, greater spacing between tables and strict hygiene measures in place.

As things stand at the moment, all-year-round hotels should be allowed to reopen on 15 June and international hotels on 1 July.  These dates, however, have not been confirmed and are dependent on how the figures run.  There are also no firm dates for when international tourism will resume.  Although tourism is responsible for about 20% of Greece’s economy and, in the islands, practically the only significant source of revenue, re-opening the doors to foreign visitors also brings with it the potential threat of a ‘second wave’ of infection which could be much harder to control.  The quality of the tourist product also has to be considered – would people still come if they can’t go clubbing in crowded Mykonos nightspots or line up like sardines in a row on organised beaches?  Perhaps this will be the year the tide turns back to the things that are uniquely Greek – history, culture, archaeology, museums – things which cannot be found elsewhere and which can, actually, be easier to make safe for visitors and locals alike. Only time will tell.

If you look carefully at the photograph, there is a cat, suspended in a special cat bed so that it can look out at the passing parade.  At the moment I think many of us feel like that cat.  Watching to see what happens next before we venture back out into a world that is likely to be very different to the one we saw in on 1 January 2020.