The beach at Nanou is popular with visitors to Symi, not least because it is served by high-speed taxi boat and has a taverna under the shade of tamarisk trees.  I don’t do beach-days, I get bored and end up climbing the cliffs (literally) but I have walked there from Horio a few times and met up with others for the ride back on the boat.  I generally only do it if asked by friends to show them the way because the path down from the ridge top is not very pleasant – loose shale, insecure footing, slipping and sliding ….. not fun.

But this time, friends wanted to do it in reverse.  Taxi-boat to Nanou and walk up.   Then on up to the mountain-top monastery of Stavros Polemou.

An added incentive was that we would be passing the Skordhalos cave soon after starting out.  Passing it on the way down and the incentive to get down to the taverna for a beer after 3 hours walking in the heat overcomes the desire to explore the cave.

The cool in the cave was a welcome respite from the hard toil uphill, the decision to resume the upward toil deferred as long as possible.  It’s entirely in pine woods with no breeze, temperatures near 40 degrees ….. so quite draining.

After scrambling up and over the construction waste from the ridge-top road which has destroyed the path, a short rest and then through cypress woodland to link up to the path to the monastery of Panagia Panaiidi and the dramatic crag-top monastery of Stavros Polemou, once a defensive and signalling location used by the Crusaders.

Then back to Horio via the remnants of a stone-built kalderimi not destroyed by the ‘tarmac’.

Take a look at the route:  https://www.relive.cc/view/e1342066981

While you’re here, why not take a look at my book, ‘Greece Unpackaged: travels in a foreign language’ available from Amazon on Kindle