We‘ve been on the go for a few days in a row now, so we decide that today will be for sleeping in, domestics and hanging around the hotel. We've run out of clean clothes. We don't particularly want to pay the hotel's exorbitant laundry prices, so we decide to wash them ourselves. We order laundry detergent from reception, and it turns up as a liquid in a tiny plastic cup draped in Glad Wrap. I start to wash clothes in the bath. Issy soon tells me I'm doing it wrong, and gives me a lesson in how to do it properly. I hadn't realised it could be so complicated. We try to hang the clothes on the inflatable hangers that Issy brought with us, but they‘re too heavy; the plugs keeps popping out, and the ... read more

Louis picks us up from the hotel again. We're learning; this time we don't wait outside on the road, so buses and taxis don't stop for us and we don't manage to make any drivers angry. We drive along the main road along the north coast. We pass a roundabout which is still being constructed. It looks a bit odd; the only road going in and out of it is the one we're on. Louis explains that while they were constructing the main road they found some ancient archaeological ruins right in the middle of where it was supposed to go. The solution was to build a roundabout, so that the the ruins will now be under the roundabout rather than the road. If that wasn't going to be costly enough, it was right at the ... read more

We wait in the street outside the hotel for Louis and his wife Lily to pick us up. We're a bit slow to realise that we're standing on a bus stop. It should have been a giveaway that the buses kept stopping and the drivers looked a bit angry when we waved them on. Our first stop is Louis and Lily's caravan where they spend most of the summer. It's parked on what looks to us like prime waterfront land, and they tell us they expect that the government will soon stop them using it so that the site can be developed. Lily talks to their caravan neighbour who she tells us has twice won the lottery. We wonder why she's still living in a caravan, but apparently both times the prizes were rabbits. Of course ... read more

I start to wonder if the locals ever get tired of the weather. As far as I can tell it's been about 27 degrees every day, with virtually no clouds, and the only thing that changes slightly is the wind speed. I think the locals might suspect they'd landed on another planet if they had to cope with the four seasons in one day we get back home. Issy says her cold is the best it's felt since we left Melbourne, although that said none of the other days have been anything to write home about. We have breakfast and then hike up the path along the rim of the caldera to the village of Imerovigli. We stop at the church on the point to take photos of Skaros Rock. It's very windy. Issy struggles to ... read more

Issy‘s cold is an absolute doozy and she wakes up feeling only very marginally better. We wander along the path towards Fira in search of nourishment. I launch into a concoction known as the ”Greek Breakfast“, which seems to just consist of three eggs. The name would seem to imply that a significant proportion of the local population munches its way through this every morning, which leaves us wondering where they get the eggs from. We haven't seen any chickens here yet. I hope the eggs come from chickens. I have coffee that the spoon stands up in, and I think that I'll probably now be awake for several days. We wander into and out of shops and then into the town’s spectacularly ceilinged main church. Unlike yesterday's monastery chapel it also seems to have some ... read more