We’re on the move again today, this time to the island of Kalymnos, which is about a five hour ferry ride north-east of Astypalea. It feels like we’re on a real Greek ferry. It’s small, some might say cosy, and makes the Blue Star monsters we’ve been on to date look like cruise ships by comparison. Issy and boats have sometimes not been a good mix. But it’s OK, there’s a small cafe on board. My beloved’s led me to understand that ginger is a good remedy for seasickness, so no great surprise that she asks me if I could buy her some ginger beer. The man behind the counter doesn’t speak a lot of English, but enough to respond that he doesn’t have any of that, but lots of Heineken and Mythos. I’m not entirely ... read more

Today we’re catching a bus to the small seaside village of Maltezana which is about ten kilometres east of Livadi just past the so-called Narrows of Astypalea. Our fearless leader Diana tells us that the name comes from a Maltese connection, and Issy suddenly gets very excited. This subsides quite quickly however when it’s revealed that the connection is that Maltese pirates used to use the bay as a hideout as they went about looting and pillaging the island. We heard similar stories in Naxos last year, and I remember thinking at the time that Issy’s Maltese relatives had been strangely silent on that particular aspect of their island’s history. It’s a bit windy here, but there are a couple of respectable looking beaches with sunlounges and beach umbrellas. It looks like it’s a serious fishing ... read more

Today we’ll be heading out on the water with a boat trip to some nearby islands. But first we have to run the gauntlet of the local transport mafia. Our fearless leader Diana’s been chartering a bus to get us around, but it seems all is not well with that arrangement. The bus driver is rude, creepy and a terrible driver, and it seems he’s also doing his best to rip us off. Diana wants to ditch him, but that’s easier said than done. We need him to take us and our several tons of luggage back to the port when we finally come to leave, so just telling him to go forth and multiply would not seem to be a particularly good strategy. Anyway, today we’re travelling to the port in taxis, five of them, ... read more

We’re on the move again today; this time it’s a two or so hour ferry ride south-east to the island of Astypalea. But first it’s “show and tell” time for the Rembrandts and their small band of supporters. I could feel the tension building at dinner last night. The main question on everyone’s lips seemed to be how their masterpieces were going to be judged. No one seemed overly impressed with my idea that we hold up cards with scores out of ten, and the bottom ranked two then have a paint-off to see who gets kicked off the tour. Issy was so nervous about the prospect of the ordeal that she tossed and turned all night, slept through the alarm and missed the whole thing. It all turned out to be quite tame. The Rembrandts ... read more

Today I’ll be joining the Rembrandts for a bus ride twenty or so kilometres south to the town of Chora. It seems that Chora just means "town" in Greek, and if you use Google Maps to try to find out where it is, well let’s just say that you’ll need to be prepared to spend quite a while sorting through a multitude of options until you find “your” Chora. But it could be worse. Fortunately not every town in Greece is called Chora, which must be a relief to Greek postmen; the name’s usually reserved just for the main town on each island. As we learned a couple of days ago there’s only six odd thousand of those. I guess a few of them might be uninhabited, so that might narrow down the list a bit…. ... read more