In the spring of 1998, my then boyfriend Scott and I were looking for a summer holiday. We had narrowed it down to a Greek island, we just needed to pick one. On the list was Symi. That saturday, in the holiday section of the Mail was a review of Symi by the weather girl Sian Lloyd. That decided it for us - we booked.

Then came the journey to get there. And what a journey it was. Flying from Gatwick we arrived at Rhodes airport at something like 3.00am. We were tired, crabby and hungry. The coach to take us to the holding hotel was took a couple of hours and we were getting more and more wound up as time went on. The holding hotel was the Constantine. The 5 hours waiting for the coach to take us to the ferry seemed like 5 days. The ferry that day was one of the old Symi ferries, the sea was choppy and we had now been awake for 26 hours. It's safe to say that we were now starting to regret the decision to pick Symi.

We were given a map of the harbour and were told we had to walk to our accomodation, the Anastatia Hotel behind the post office. We climbed the 43 steps lugging our cases with us and fell into bed for the next 5 hours.

That afternoon, we walked to Nos. I loved the boatyard and watching the children jumping in the water by the big hotels. We waved off the daytrippers as they left Symi, and we both felt very smug that we were "residents" for 2 weeks. Dinner that evening was taken at Trawler and drinks were at the Harani bar. We walked back to the hotel at about midnight.

At breakfast the next morning there was an older couple sitting next to us that told us this was their 16th visit to Symi! We thought they were totally bonkers. How on earth could people keep going to the same place year after year? Breakfast was coffee, cake and bread. Delicious. That day we went to Nos, and spent time playing boggle when not snorkelling.

Dinner that night was just behind the square, I don't know the name of the place, but we've been there many times since, they do great steaks. Walking after dinner, we discovered Kantarimi and the lovely people that owned it. We immediately felt comfortable there, and it was to become one of our bases for the next 8 years. We sat in Kanterimi until 2am - it was the start of a pattern. ;-)

The next day we took our 1st water Taxi to St Nicks. The perfect beach for shade bathing and paddling. That lunchtime also introduced me to Tuna Salad, and Mythos beer. I loved the boat ride, and this time on entering the harbour on the way back, I was moved to tears by the beauty of it.

The love affair had begun.........