Photo: Jocelyn Erskine-Kellie (CC BY-SA 2.0)
A self-guided audio walking tour of Symi, from the clock tower at the entrance to the harbour of Gialos up the long climb to Chorio, the upper town. The clock tower went up in 1881, when Symi lived from shipping, trade, sponge fishing and boatbuilding and was one of the richest ports in the Mediterranean. Along the harbour come the house where, on 8 May 1945, the German forces in the Dodecanese surrendered to the Allies, the war memorial with a trireme carved into the rock, the statue of the sponge diver Stathis Hatzis, the neoclassical mansions of the shipowners, captains and sponge merchants, the Nautical Museum on the site of the old central shipyard and the church of Saint John. The Kali Strata, the great stone stairway, climbs to Chorio, with its windmills, the Archaeological and Folklore Museum, the castle on the site of the ancient acropolis and the Panagia tou Kastrou at the highest point. Most visitors come by ferry or day boat from Rhodes, and the return boat leaves at a fixed time, so keep that departure time in mind.
12 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 11 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 2 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Clock Tower, Place of the 1945 Dodecanese Surrender, War Memorial, Stathis Hatzis.
Gialos harbour and its mansions, Nautical Museum of Symi, Church of Saint John in Gialos, Kali Strata.
Windmills of Chorio, Archaeological Museum of Symi, Castle of the Knights, Panagia tou Kastrou.
Put up in 1881, a gift of the Petridis family, on the jetty every boat passes on its way into Gialos.
A waterfront house with a plaque recording that the German forces in the Dodecanese surrendered to the Allies here on 8 May 1945.
The statue of the island's most famous sponge diver, the trade that made Symi rich.
Neoclassical mansions of shipowners, captains and sponge merchants, rising row above row around the bay.
The Good Road, the great stone stairway built to join the harbour of Gialos to Chorio, the upper town.
The Kastro at the top of Chorio, on the site of the ancient acropolis, with Hellenistic, Byzantine and Knights' phases.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 12 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 12 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Symi — Gialos, the Kali Strata and Chorio, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
12 narration points, including Clock Tower, Place of the 1945 Dodecanese Surrender, Gialos harbour and its mansions, Nautical Museum of Symi and Church of Saint John in Gialos. That is about 11 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 12 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.