Hup and down the square!

I always find these sorts of guards (of the unblinking, tourist-ignoring, random boot-stamping variety) slightly inhuman.

This is ruined a little when they do something very routine and entirely un-toy-solder-like. In this case, the three marched up to a gate, by a circuitous but geometrically precise route, and came to a loud, heel-jarring halt. They then were forced to wait while the senior officer (marching at the rear in the above shot... I like to think he's a sergeant major) fumbled about in his pocket for keys, opened the gate to let his juniors through, followed, with even more pivoting and boot-stamping in his efforts to turn around and close the gate (I think to compensate for the unceremoniousness of the activity he was undertaking), before continuing on to escort them to a changing of the guard.

Do you ever get the feeling they're just watching, biding their time...?

London town

Sometimes it takes a fresh set of eyes to make you see things that are in front of you every day. In this case, literally; I was catching a train from Clapham Junction with my mum and sister - exactly the same trip I take each day to work. This time though, I had my camera...

Adio Hellas

After a fairly hectic last day in Crete, involving hiring a van at the last minute to go hiking in the beautiful gorges in the Cretan mountains, I boarded the overnight ferry back to Athens. When I bought deck class rather than cabin class, I didn't know exactly how literal they are with these things. The locals definitely did - whole familys brought along picnic rugs, blankets and picnic baskets to spread out in the halls of the 6-storey ferry. I found myself a comfy spot in the large and strangly empty seated area to ride out the 14 hour trip before spending a half day poking through the Athens Archaelogical Museum and then jumping on the plane.

Harbouring secrets

The harbours of the old Venetian seaside towns of Crete are simply gorgeous. This is Rethymno (love that name, so poetic), where the old stone lighthouse stands at the entrance to the harbour. The collision of relaxed Greek lifestyle with the narrow winding streets and charming waterside architecture of Venice means the place exudes a sense of relaxed romance the likes of which I've not quite seen anywhere else.

Rambling on ruins

The ruins of the Minoan palace of Knossos is one of those incredibly peaceful places I could spend days just sitting in (well, if the crowds didn't all turn up at that precise time which I suppose is just enough to have allowed a slow start with a continental breakfast and plenty of milling between the hotel and tourbus).

There's something about ruins which makes me feel very calm, particularly if there are artfully scattered pine-trees around the place, inhabited by peacocks and cooing doves. It may be a little artificial (most of Knossos was reconstructed with a reasonable amount of guesswork by a well-intentioned but perhaps over-enthusiastically romantic English archaeologist), but the result is amazing nonetheless, particularly given the history and even mythology of the place - when it was found, it was speculated that this was the Labyrinth in which Theseus slew the Minotaur, and subsequently from here that Daedalus, creator of the Labyrinth, and his ill-fated son Icarus set out to escape using wings of Daedalus' design.

The above two legends lend names to two geographical features of Greece - one the Aegean Sea after King Aegeus, father of Theseus, who upon seeing Theseus' ship returning with black sails hoisted (Theseus was meant to hoist white if he was returning alive, but forgot), cast himself into the aforesaid body of water. The other is Ikaria, the island closest to where Icarus fell after flying too close to the sun and melting the wax of his wings - so named by a grieving Daedalus as he winged his way on (by an apparantly circuitous flightpath) to Sicily.

All happy stuff. But a lot of fun to imagine that this is one of the places, or at least was part of the culture and history, that inspired a tradition so vivid and powerful that it still holds currency thousands upon thousands of years later.

24/7

The Mykonos harbourside is a happy, busy spot - at pretty much any hour of the day or night.

Just a couple more...

Just a few more Santorini moments... Diners watching the sunset at Eia and catching a boat out to the Caldera for a wander around a live volcano and a brisk swim through bloody cold water to almost-as-cold ("hot") springs. Still, diving off a yacht in the Mediterranean has long been an ambition. Tick.