In 1996 we shared Greece with our friends and lured Uli and Margit May there. We met them in Athens and then took them to Thira-Santorini, Naxos and Paros.

 The Thira caldera after sunset (Cornelius took this and the following photo in 1985).

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 Thira-Phira the island town kreeping down the steep rim of the caldera.

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 Uli, Barbara, Margit and myself (on the roof of the guesthouse of the Krtitkos in Naxos,). This is the only picture which shows the the long gash on my leg which I got in a bad fall in the rocks on the way to Fotodoti . It healed by itself..

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 We had never been to Oia (pronounced Ia) of which Peter Grohs had given us glowing descriptions. Oia has become very expensive, the place for exclusive tourists, who have helped the town to recover from the earthquake damage of 1968.

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 It has become a picturesque place. The houses are painted, some very tastefully, in pastel-colors — besides the traditional white wash.

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 A restored chapel, probably now used as a bar with soft guitar music....

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 A view of Phira and the caldera from the top of Oia.

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 Some places sport exotic sculptures like this Aphrodite, with Megalo Kameni, the plug of the volcano in the background.

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This seemingly phallic object is merely a folded umbrella in an expensive restaurant, but it looks good in the late light.

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From Santorini we took the boat to Naxos.  Uli, very busy, very impatient, had to fly back from Naxos to München and left Margit with us. We had a very good time with her, mostly lying on the beaches.

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 Margit and Barbara in Naxos town. - Schöne Beine haben's beide!

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 One of the Naxos beaches along the east coast across from Paros.

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 Barbara with Paros in the background.

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 Eventually we took a boat to Paros, and arrived there in a cloud of smoke from a brush fire. Margit had to be coaxed off the boat... but lovely Paros, here seen from the Monastery of the Heavenly Twins - soon captured her painterly imagination.

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 Margit sleeping and Barbara reading at our beloved moni.

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Barbara resting...

This was the summer after we had been in Tibet, and Barbara wore her Tibetan hat. She is walking along the wall of the Moni of the Anagyrii above Paroikia.

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 Lunch at the moni - a beer would wake up Margit!

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 Margit sleeping again.... She slept a lot, we never could persuade her to see any other nice3 things or to come with us to Amorgos, we were much to active for her... After Margit flew back to München, we spent another couple of weeks in Amorgos by ourselves and then returned to Athens.

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Amorgos

 They now had two new buses, but there were still two or three donkeys in the Chora. The Plateia where the bus stops and...

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Good old Dimitri welcomed us in the Chora with a free coffee. It was good to find him again, unchanged after 10 years. But he complained with a long litany about his dense wife....  

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 And his three lazy daughters - and brighter looking granddaughters. He had married two, but no man wanted the third one. The old woman is not his wife - who refused to be photographed - but his mother!

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 The Amorgou Renaissance had made progress but there were still a few unrenovated houses in the center where the Mintaur lives.

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 The hill of the Kastro on the left and some unfinished houses.

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 Barbara on top the stairs to Ag. Georgiou and the Kastro

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 Aghias Annis, was now connected by a new asphalted road with the Chora and a bus every hour.

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The Garden of the Monks where we again spend many a hyot noon. 

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To Barbara's delight the kalderimi from the Chora to Katapola was still walkable except where it crossed the new road.  

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 Katapola Bay from the Hill of Minoa.

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Barbara all packed up waiting for the boat (in Paroikia).

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