As I mentioned, the open-air museum island of Delos is only reachable by ferry from the neighboring island of Mykonos. It really is the archaeological highlight of the Cyclades, and even some of the cruise-ship passengers were persuaded to forgo the hedonistic delights of Mykonos Town, Paradise Beach, and the allegedly even better Super Paradise […]
The group on holiday was the usual mix of interesting people, with just two whom I tried my best to avoid. The holiday was fully inclusive (including apparently unlimited wine most lunchtimes and every dinnertime!) so we always ate together as a group. Which meant that there were lots of opportunities for stimulating mealtime conversations. […]
The last few days of the holiday were split between the neighbouring islands of Mykonos and Delos. I’d wanted to visit the latter for many years – it is one of the most important archaeological sites in Greece. In Antiquity the island was sacred to Apollo, but was completely abandoned after the rise of Christianity, […]
The coach driver on Naxos spoke good English, and was very eloquent about the problems facing the Greek economy. His take on it was that the islands have coped much better with “austerity” over the past few years than the mainland. He reckoned that was partly because the islands’ economy is heavily reliant on tourism, […]
I thoroughly enjoyed Naxos, the next island we visited. It was larger, more fertile, and less touristy than either Santorini or Mykonos, and had a very relaxed atmosphere. We caught a SeaCat ferry there from Santorini, and arrived in the little harbour in Chora, the main town on Naxos. The first sight we saw on […]
We started out on Santorini, where the highlight for me was our visit to the Bronze Age town of Akrotiri, which is very reminiscent in many ways of Pompeii. The town was completely destroyed and buried under 60m of ash when the volcano of Thera blew its top (in 1500BC if you ask an archaeologist, […]
I’ve just returned from ten days island hopping by ferry in the Cyclades, on another of my archaeological holidays. The group met up on Santorini, and from there we caught a succession of ferries to Naxos, Mykonos, Tinos and Delos. It was a very interesting time to be in Greece, watching the economy crumble around […]
I’ve spent another day back at Eastnor Pottery, something I always enjoy. Jon the Potter only runs his weekend throwing workshops from autumn through to late spring, finding that there just isn’t the demand for them over the summer. He focusses instead on the more lucrative business of children’s parties, hen parties and his “Flying […]
I got home from work this afternoon to find a parcel waiting for me – the results of my glass fusing. I’m very pleased with the three bowls I made. The first two are pretty much as I had imagined them. The last one, which looked rather unpromising in its raw state, has come out […]
Last autumn I spent a very interesting day learning how to make glass bowls at Rainbow Glass studios in North London. My sister and brother-in-law were so interested in my description of it that they decided to go on the same course the following month, with the result that it was glassware all round as […]
