Part of 1971 and 1972 I worked at the Max-Planck-Institute for Plasmaphysics in München-Garching. Before settling in Garching I took Barbara to Greece. She had never been there — and I had not been back since 1954. Not to follow Gerhard's and my tracks, I decided to go into the Aegean Islands, where I had never been. We deposited the children with relatives and grandparents — what a luxury!— and flew by cheap charter from München to Athens, where we boarded the first boat to sail next morning. It went to Mykonos. — There followed four heavenly weeks, we were still young and beautiful and more in love than ever....

 Barbara on the boat passing Kea. The blue sea and the islands floating by, each with its own old stories, were an intoxicating experience.  

 The crowd on the boat, mostly young people, passing Tinos in the background.

 Mykonos

Boats in the harbor of Mykonos. In Mykonos, my Greek had come back, we found a very cheap room with two field beds a mile northwest out of town — the laundry-room of the owners of a restaurant.... Who cared, we only used it at night, and the restaurant people cooked something for us whenever we asked.

The cat who chased the chicken under the sail of a windmill.... Mykonos was on the way to become fashionable, all cruise ships passed by its harbor, the town was crowded with tourist, but had not lost its identity.  

 One of the many chapels in the maze of streets of Mykonos Village.

 A Minoan staircase. 

 Fifteen minutes from our lodging we found this pebble beach. For days we were completely alone there, occasionally a shepherd would spy on us, but the bleating of his sheep and their bells gave us an early warning.... Have you ever made love in the Greek sea?

 Delos

The skipper of the boat to Delos, a sprig of Basilicum behind his ear.  Half-an-hour by motor boat from Mykonos floats Delos, the Island of Apollo and the center of the Cycladic Mandala. All other islands circle around it like the spokes of a big wheel: Siros, Tinos, Mykonos - Naxos, Paros, Seriphos in the first circle, Kythnos, Andros, Amorgos - Ios, Milos, Folegandros in the second. A sea-scape of white-washed villages, bare, spiny rock-islands parched by a merciless sun, and between them the blue Aegean Sea. No palm trees (except one in Ios), no lush vegetation, and in 1971 no drugs. A few years later this paradise had disappeard: Ios had become the burnt-out drug-capital of Greece....

The strait between Mykonos and Delos, on the left are the mountains of Tinos. Instead of joining the crowd taking in the ruins of the Apollo sanctuary, we climbed Mount Kithnos - the island's highest peak (160 m) and spent a magical day there in complete silence, watching the sun circle around us. Even a noisy group of young Japanese fell silent up there.

The old harbor of Delos and some ruins from Roman times. The small island was the burial ground, nobody was allowed to die on Delos. The larger one is Rhenia.  

 The view southeast. A fisherman speared fish and sponges along the shore. One could see his prey through the clear water.

 Ios

 Fate and luck took us to Ios, where I rented a donkey to take our backpacks up to the Khora Iou, the island village half-an-hour uphill. On the way a friendly woman, the wife of the burgomaster, offered us a room. This was the view of the harbor from her terrace, where we had breakfast every morning.  

The Kastro, a windmill, and the houses of the Khora Iou. The incongruous, single palm tree is seen on the left! 

Koumbari Beach, where we spent many a day alone or with young friends we had met at night in the restaurants, among them, most notably, Guy de Bissel the cultural attaché at the Belgian embassy in Paris.  

 Koumbari Beach in the morning, before I nearly tread on a big snake among the rocks.

The Khora from the east, seen from the path to Theodoti.

View of the fields, the harbor bay, and the Khora from the path. The tip of Iraklia in the distance.

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Asphodels, the one of the few flowers on islands in late September. 

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 An old olive tree on the eastern side of the island.

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 Barbara looking at Theodoti.

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 Olive trees at the beach of Theodoti. We spent the day in a cave near the water watching a woman and her daughter washing a rug in the sea...

 Thira-Santorini

Twice a week Kritikakis (an imigrant from Crete) in the tan shirt and trousers, made excursions to Thira-Santorini with his boat.

 Barbara on Kritikakis' boat.

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 The old harbor in the inner crater of Thira-Santorini. Thira — Santorini is its Italian name — sits on the circular remnants of a near-extinct vulcano, which erupted in 1450 BC with such force that its tsunami destroyed the entire Minoan culture on the islands and in eastern Crete. Tephera from this explosion can be found as far east as Rhodes, and tephera pieces are still swept up on all Cycladic beaches.... Excavations on Thira have shown, that the level of this early Minoan culture was so high, that the archeologists argue that Thira was the true Island of Atlantis. — We hiked up to the town Thira-Phira on 365 steps in the searing noon sun. The S-curves of the stairs are visible on the right of the photo. Today, a cable car takes the tourists from the cruise ships to the top....

Barbara on the path to the village of Skaros. Way in the distance the village of Ia and one of the three openings of the Thira Crater.

An earthquake some years earlier had destroyed much of Skaros, exposing the semi-troglytic houses dug into the soft vulcanic deposits. 

A view into the crater from one of the destroyed houses.

The church of Aghios Stephanos and the Venitian castle of Skaros.

 The tephera quarries of Phira and the southern part of the rim seen from the terrace of the archeological museum in Phira.

The Catholic Episcopate. Thira-Santorini was a Venitian stronghold during the late Middle Ages, and besides Naxos the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop 

Ios 

On alternating days Kritikakis sailed to Manganari Beach on the far southeasten tip of Ios. On this lonely sand beach everyone was in the nude — except Guy de B., who sat in bathing trunks apart from us and the international bunch of young people who had come on the same boat. Finally, at noon Barbara in her full beauty presented him with a large grape for lunch — he was reading Nabokov's "Speak Memory" — both sealed our friendship. Thereafter he looked for us often and told us many hilarious stories of his hosting famous writers in Paris (buying shoes on the Champs Elysses for crazy Jerzy Kosinsky, sharp-tongued Mary McCarthy colliding with Simone De Beauvoir at a literary party...), his Christmas excursions to the Vienna Opera with his mother, and an in-depth lecture on the life and writings of Lou Andreas-Salome over a lunch of Greek-fried sardines, heads, bones and all... Here we also met John and Mary Robertson and the ravishingly beautiful Marie-Claire Driesch from Paris — whom I would again encounter, many years later, in front of the famous Bosch triptych in the Prado in Madrid....

Another friend became Herbert Lewitter, an American expatriate and lawyer in Paris. Herbert serving coffee at Milapotas beach.

 And one day we walked to Klima Beach with John and Mary (still suffering from the heat and still fully dressed...) and Herbert. — We would never feel so young again.

 Our boat to Athens was to leave at 6 pm, it arrived at two in the morning. It had become mid October, and a strong meltemi was blowing from the northeast. In those days we had to be ferried out to the boat in small motor boats across the bay. The water was pitch black, we stood closely packed in the darkness. Rickety stairs to the first deck. Don't stumble with the heavy backpack, it would be certain disaster. I ran up to the top rear deck to secure a wood bench behind a windbraker for us to sleep on. Everywhere lay young people pale as a bedsheets We rolled out our sleeping bags — we never traveled without them. Eventually the boat got going. As soon as we reached the open sea the fun started. Don't look at the stars which performed a dissying dance in the sky. The old tub creaked and heaved, the waves were long and violent. The boat hit the waves with a violent shudder followed by the propellers' screaching in mid air.... Barbara had to drag away an unconscious fellow by his feet to reach the toilet. We reached Piraieus six-hours late. The solid land continued to heave under our legs. All senses and the stomach still hypersnsitive I couldn't face noisy Athens. We took the familiar boat to Poros and spent the remaining three days till our flight hiking on Poros, visiting old Nonda, and on a last charmed afternoon in Troizen, bathing in the cool water of the brook along which Theseus grew up. The seats on our flight were one-quarter empty, a tour group had not made it back in time.... From then on we always returned from the islands to Athens a few days early....

Troizen

An olive tree in the Troizinias and the mountains of Poros

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 Troizen village and entry to the gorge of the brook in which we rested.