Waterfront

We were the first people to stay at this property. It is a gorgeous, spacious 3-bedroom house in front of the water, tastefully decorated and with a well-equipped kitchen. The main bedroom has a large balcony overlooking the water and a little balcony on the side (while we were there the replacement air conditioning unit was on it so we could not use it), and one of the bedrooms has doors to its own little terrace. All three bedrooms have very good air conditioning. There are three separate shower rooms each with a toilet. There is a washing machine. There is a huge terrace at the front with table and chairs overlooking the water. The house is comfortable, clean and modern. Anna was extremely responsive and very lovely. There were a few issues during our stay and Anna was communicative and proactive in resolving these. Anna let us have a late checkout without hesitation which we really appreciated. Location positives: the water is across the road in front of the house, meaning you have stunning views of Symi and Turkey; it's a 15 minute walk from the main part of town so it's quiet in the evening; there's a tiny harbour "beach" near the house where you can cool off; there's a garage almost next door which sells large bottles of water for 1 euro. We arrived on the Blue Star at the big port which is less than 5 minutes walk from the house. If you're new to Symi - I'd recommend catching a boat taxi to Agia Marina from the main part of the town. Agia Marina has sunbeds for 5, 10 or 30 euro for the whole day (depending on the location), aquamarine water and a very good taverna. You can order food and drinks from your sunbed and they will be brought to you there. If you have time, I'd also recommend a one-day boat trip. We went with Aegean Star this time and had the whole boat to ourselves. They dropped us back right in front of the house too so we didn't need to walk back from the main harbour in the heat.

As you can see from my overall score of 9/10, the positives definitely outweighed the negatives for us. Anna told us on arrival that the air-conditioning wasn't working downstairs in the kitchen/sitting room. She said that if we'd prefer not to be disturbed, it could be repaired after we left. We said that we would prefer it to be repaired and expected this to be done the day after we arrived. Unfortunately, it wasn't possible for the workers to come until two days before we left, which seemed too late to justify the disruption. They left quite a mess both inside and outside the house which we cleaned up as it was around the main entrance. The main bedroom is stunning, however the long wall that separates it from the hallway does not reach the ceiling so any noise in the kitchen downstairs travels up the stairs and can easily be heard in the bedroom and vice versa. It would have been good to have been told on arrival: - how to turn on the cooker power (we worked it out eventually) - that the tap water is not drinkable. It would have been great to have a way of having shade on the front terrace as it is in shade until around midday then it has full, scorching sun on it. Some comfortable seating for the terrace would have been good. The metal chairs aren't comfortable. Location negatives: the house is a couple of minutes from the big port. This means that it is very noisy during the day. It is also next door to the fuel station which has fuel pumps along the harbour wall for boats to refuel. This is extremely noisy and there is often a very strong smell of diesel fumes. The fumes from the boats leave a sooty layer on the balcony bars at the front of the house. The walk into town during the heat of the day is very, very hot and tiring. For most of it there is no footpath and a single lane right next to the water which the bus squeezes along which some people may find difficult.