Month: June 2020

Greece Welcomes the World?

blog 16 June 2020 a
The water taxis are ready and waiting.

blog 16 June 2020 bblog 16 June 2020 c

blog 16 June 2020 d
Boatyard chick.
blog 16 June 2020 e
Not quite ready for lunch customers just yet.
blog 16 June 2020 f
A work in progress – all the boats are back in the water and it is time to transform the littoral into a beach.
blog 16 June 2020 g
High water levels in Pedi as the solstice approaches.

With much fanfare and a Santorini sunset TV op, Greece’s prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis declared the 2020 tourist season open.  As is the norm this year, confusion prevails regarding who can travel and what is happening regarding Covid-19 testing and quarantine.  With regulations changing daily and the difficulties the media are having in keeping up to date with the ever-changing landscape, the most reliable source of information on who can travel and what should be happening on arrival is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website.  This, of course, does not mean that the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Health might not have other ideas but it is a good starting point.

The current measures and lists only really apply to the situation from now to 30 June.  1 July is supposed to see a major opening up to broader international travel but this is highly dependent on how things go in Greece in the next two weeks and also what happens in countries like the USA and the UK where the disease figures are still high.  Greece is treading a fine line between the tourist revenue it desperately needs and destroying brand Greece’s reputation as a safe destination if the virus starts to arrive in significant numbers from abroad.

Tourists themselves are also faced with an ethical dilemma – do I travel because I want to have my holiday and I put my own pleasure first or do I wait until next year in order to protect the health of my hosts?  Many of Symi’s regular visitors, as well as property owners, are discussing this at some length on social media and the general feeling is to stay away until it really is safe to travel, not just because some bureaucrat says so.

Seasonal resort hotels, museums and brothels opened their doors from yesterday.  Gyms have also been allowed to reopen.  Once again, all sorts of new rules, regulations and protocols apply.  The Pedi Beach Hotel has all its umbrellas set up at the new spacings. They had a few Greek guests over the weekend but I didn’t see anyone on my walk this morning, just a lone painter on an extension ladder.

Once again ‘wait and see’ is the motto of the day.

And in other news, temperatures on Symi are now around 30 degrees at midday, dropping to about 20 at night.  After a few exceptionally clear days the heat haze is building up and Saharan sand is drifting up over Crete and the mainland, bringing high temperatures with it.

Keep safe everyone.

 

 

Socially Distant Symi

Carnival, Clean Monday Easter and May Day came and went discreetly during the Covid-19 lock down. The same cannot be said for Greek Pentecost which was celebrated with great enthusiasm last weekend. The first holiday since Epiphany in January that could be celebrated in any way, Greece saw its first real surge of domestic tourism.

In Mykonos, the famous party island, Athenians flocked to the beach bars that had opened for that weekend.  The inevitable happened and at least one was fined 20 000 euros and closed for 60 days for violating the social distancing regulations.  Symi, on the other hand, was a place of pilgrimage and Dodecanese Seaways brought people over from Rhodes to go to Panormitis monastery.  Rather more sedate and the photographs emerging on social media were nothing like the jam-packed throngs we usually associate with events like the Panormitis festival or even Sunday church-goers from Rhodes.  Those tavernas and cafes in Yialos that have opened finally had some customers and there was a bit of an ambient hum to the island that has been absent since last summer.

Katsaras in Pedi is one of the few organised beaches that is open at the moment.  As you can see from the photographs, the umbrellas and sunbeds are widely spaced.  The beach has been extended slightly seaward with more sand so that the front row of sunbeds is further out that usual.  The taverna is now open.  Apostoli’s on the other side of Pedi bay is still in boat-yard mode although most of the boats have now been launched.  Locals go along and help themselves from the pile of sunbeds in the corner.

Although the water taxis are being launched none of them is in operation as they don’t have their 2020 licenses as yet and in any case there isn’t really anywhere for them to go until the beach tavernas open and there are enough tourists to justify the service.  The beach and taverna over at Toli bay on the west coast of the island opened for Pentecost but that is accessible by road.

At time of writing, the Nireus, Aliki and Pedi Beach hotels are still closed.  Of these, the Pedi Beach looks the most promising as work is continuing on upgrading the rooms and there are staff around, doing things, even if the hotel is not actually open.

No word about what is or isn’t happening at Agia Marina.  No signs of any activity at Petalo.  NOS beach, the town beach, is not open yet but there is activity going on.

Technically the 2020 international tourist season starts from 15 June which is next Monday and travellers arriving from the approved list will not be subject to quarantine measures, only random spot checks.  All international flights will still be going through Athens.  Local airports like Rhodes will only start receiving international flights from 1 July.  Travel between Greece and Italy is supposed to start opening up from next week, although some Italian airports are still on the high risk list.  Main arrivals are likely to be on the big Super Fast ferries coming from Ancona.   All ferry travel, both domestic and international, requires the completion of a special form before departure, answering various questions regarding health as well as providing contact details and addresses so that in the event of anyone having the virus, all likely contacts can be traced and notified as quickly as possible.  Speaking of ferries, Symi won’t have daily ferries until the Panagia Skiadeni comes on line on 30 June to fill some of the gaps.  This is dependent on there being enough tourists in Rhodes to justify day excursions from Rhodes to Symi so there is a strong element of wait and see there.  The word in the harbour is that we won’t be seeing the ANES Sebeco shuttle this year.  Apparently it is most likely going to serve a potentially more lucrative route off the the mainland.  Of course as this is the year where no one really knows what is happening from one day to the next this may well change.

No one knows for sure yet what countries will be allowed in without any kind of quarantine requirements after 1 July as so much depends on epidemiological profiles elsewhere and these change daily.  There is also concern at all levels because there has been an increase in the number of new cases of Covid-19 in the last 10 days or so, many of them associated with arrivals from abroad (Greeks returning rather than tourist travellers).  The daily government briefings on TV have been reinstated and the situation is being monitored closely.  Specific areas may be isolated or locked down if there is any danger of them escalating into hot spots.  Qatar airlines is only allowed to resume flights into Athens after 15 June as a flight from Doha on 1 June had 12 positive cases out of 91 passengers.  Emirates only resumes on 15 July.  Other airlines are cancelling or rescheduling flights as they go, depending on changing regulations and reduced demand.  I have been receiving emails from mainly British regular visitors to Symi, telling me that their holidays have been cancelled or that they have been rescheduled.  With the UK now implementing a 14 day quarantine period for travellers returning from abroad, it is not surprising that the UK package holiday companies are cancelling June and July holidays on a rolling basis.

Once again, all we can do is wait and see – and do our bit to maintain social distancing to keep ourselves and others safe and well.

 

 

Covid Confusion and Empty Cafes

blog 2 June 2020 a
I spotted this abandoned swing and tumbledown shepherd’s croft in the valley on one of my recent walks.
blog 2 June 2020 b
For the morning glory outside Giorgio and Maria’s taverna in Chorio it is business as usual.
blog 2 June 2020 d
Waiting for dinner to swim in.

In theory Greece is almost back to ‘normal’ in terms of the businesses that are allowed to operate.  The children are back in school and parents are back at work.  The all-year-round hotels are open and the international/tourist/seasonal ones can reopen on 15 June.  We can go to cafes, bars, restaurants and the beach.  All of the above, of course, with various regulations and social distancing requirements.

In practice the picture on Symi and various other places where the economy is entirely tourism driven is quite different.  When there are no tourists, there are no customers.  The sunbeds and umbrellas may be at the decreed spacing and the taverna menus on display but without tourists they remain empty.  Aside from people working in two banks, the post office and the power station, just about everyone else has been out of work since last October so there is no money to spend on outings and treats.  The island’s core economy currently seems to be dependent on the resident expat pensioners whose income, at least so far, has remained stable, but there is a limit to even their capacity for drinks in the square and coffees in the cafes.

International tourism in Greece only starts officially on 15 June and then only from a list of countries with low levels of infection.  All these flights have to come through Athens as direct international flights to the islands only start on 1 July.  People can come from other places but they are then subject to quarantine which means that if you want to come to Greece on holiday you may spend the first 7 or 14 days, depending on whether you test negative or positive for Covid-19 on arrival, in quarantine.  That could mean a week or two in a room in a quarantine hotel in Athens or unable to leave your accommodation elsewhere if you are allowed to continue your journey to your end destination. That doesn’t help tourism much but it is A Good Thing for people who need to get to Greece to take up contracts for work, are employed in seasonal work, have houses here and intend to spend months or years in Greece.

Unfortunately everyone’s fears about the wisdom of international travel were confirmed when a Qatar Air flight from Doha arrived in Athens on Monday and out of the 91 passengers on board, 12 of them tested positive for the virus.  Three of these, two Australian Greeks and one Japanese Greek, were technically from countries that are on Greece’s approved flight list and if they had come into the country after 15 June may well have only had random spot testing rather than the full blown test-and-quarantine-everybody policy that is currently in place.  Needless to say, Qatar flights from Doha have been suspended until 15 June while the powers that be decide how to hack this one.

As most UK airports are on the black list and in any case the British Foreign Office is still advising against non-essential travel, Symi’s usual British travellers are not allowed to travel.  As they are the dominant groups in May, June, September and October, that is already a large chunk of the island’s income gone.  The Australians are trapped by their own government for the foreseeable future so no diaspora Greeks coming to visit family this summer.  The Danes are on the approved list but their government won’t allow them out until 31 August. The French, another nationality that plays a major part in Symi’s summer tourism, are also still waiting to be allowed out of France (by their government) and into Greece.  Ditto the Italians, the Spaniards and so on.

Do you book in the hope that you may be allowed to travel or do you wait to see what happens? As airlines are also in a quandary, flights booked get cancelled or rescheduled as passengers are too few to cover costs so it all becomes self perpetuating.  Then there are all those people who are still trying to get refunds, vouchers and what have you for flights and holidays over March, April, May and June that have been cancelled.  Do they feel strong enough to go through it all again?  Better wait until next year when everything has calmed down…

With so many uncertainties many of Symi’s regular visitors, including property owners, have had to cancel their plans, particularly if they have children and are tied to school holidays.  If they have to take a ‘staycation’ within their home country’s borders, they need to book now before all the best places are gone.

The motto for this year seems to be ‘we shall see’.