Panormitis

Panormitis is a deep, almost landlocked bay at the south-western corner of Symi, in the Dodecanese, roughly 10 km from Symi town by the single road over the island's spine. A narrow inlet opens into a wide, well-protected harbour with a small sandy beach at its head and a monastery built directly on the water's edge. Symi itself sits about 24 km north of Rhodes, which is why day boats from Rhodes make Panormitis their first or last call. The uninhabited islet of Seskli, off Symi's southern cape, belongs to the monastery here.

The Monastery of the Archangel Michael

Manuscripts record a monastery at Panormitis from the fifteenth century, but the church standing today is a single-aisle basilica of 1783. The bell tower was added in 1911 in a Baroque style unusual for the Aegean; its main bell weighs 750 kg and was cast by Tasos Anastasiadis, the last bell-maker on the island, who also made the door. Inside is the icon of the Archangel Michael, plated in silver and gold and held to be miraculous.

The dedication is the point of the place. Michael is the protector of sailors across the Dodecanese, and the monastery walls carry the evidence: ship models, silver votive plaques and offerings left by crews who came through bad weather. Local lore casts the Archangel as something of a thief, on the grounds that anyone who promises him an offering and fails to deliver will find he collects it another way.

Two museums stand beside the church. One holds ecclesiastical material - vestments, silver icons, liturgical plate and Russian epitaphioi. The other is a folk collection covering fishing, farming and stock-keeping on Symi. The monastery keeps guest cells for pilgrims who want to stay, help with the work and spend a feast there, and it runs a bakery whose bread and cheese pies are the usual reason sailors walk up from the quay. Its feast days are Pentecost and 8 November, the latter marking the effective end of the island's season.

Anchoring and swimming

Boats can moor at the monastery quay or anchor out in the middle of the bay, where the bottom is a mix of sand, rock and weed. The bay shelters well from the prevailing northerlies but takes a swell when the wind comes round to the west. A paved path runs the whole way round the water to the windmill by the entrance, and there are a few tavernas along the front. Between the pilgrim boats out of Rhodes and the yachts working the Dodecanese, many charter guests exploring Greece anchor here for the afternoon rather than staying the night, since the road and the tour timetable empty the bay again by evening.

Panormitis Beach, the only beach on the bay, is unorganised sand and pebble. It shelves gently into shallow, clear water, which suits families and anyone who is not a strong swimmer, and it deepens far enough out for snorkelling. Water shoes are worth having: a lot of the pebbles and broken shell are sharp. Sea temperatures average around 26C (79F) in high summer, and air temperatures usually sit in the low thirties Celsius, with heatwave peaks that can pass 40C (104F). Pilgrims come all year; ordinary visitor numbers peak between June and September.