Symi Kasos Ferry

Symi Guide

The Greek island of Symi is one of the Dodecanese Islands and is located around 40 km to the north west of the island of Rhodes and 420 km from the Port of Piraeus. Symi's closest neighbours are the Datca and Bozburun peninsulars of Mugla Province in Turkey. The island's terrain is mainly mountainous and its coastline is made up of either beaches and secluded coves, or rocky cliffs. Located on the north east coast of the island is its main town, also called Symi. The lower town is the area around the harbour, called Yialos, and the upper town is called Horio or Ano Symi. There isn't a great deal to see or do on the island, and this is perhaps where its charm is. Apart from lazing on the beach or swimming in its crystal clear waters the Monastery of the Archangel Panormitis, which is an early 18th century Greek Orthodox monastery built on the coast in the south west of the country, is worth visiting. Overlooking Ano Symi is the Kastro which was built by the Knights of St. John as an expansion of a Byzantine castle on the same site. Quite a bit of the structure remains and there are also signs of an ancient citadel on which two later castles were built.

Kasos Guide

The Greek island of Kasos is the most southerly of the Dodecanese group of islands and has a history that is closely associated with the nearby island of Crete. The island's first inhabitants are thought to have been the Phoenicians, while Homer included the island as one of the islands that participated in the Trojan War. The small island had a significant naval presence and used its fleet to take part in the Revolution in 1821 which unfortunately resulted in its complete destruction by the Turks in 1824.

The island's more recent history is linked to the rest of the islands in the Dodecanese until they were all unified with Greece in 1948. Many of island's residents, and those of Karpathos, emigrated to America and Egypt, where they worked on the construction of the Suez Canal in the middle of the 19th century.

Kasos can be reached by ferry from Piraeus, Crete (Siteia, Aghios Nikolaos), Rhodes, Halki and Karpathos.