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Map of the Cyclades Islands (9 Mby)

 In 1971 I took Barbara to Greece for the first time. - Never having been to the islands we took the first boat from Piraeus we found on that morning. It was the Apollon and it sailed to Mykonos. These years were the beginning of the "Kinder-crusade", as we called it, the young and beautiful were island hopping. I fell in love with the sea, the bare, floating islands, the old boats, and the young girls from all over the world. A unique seascape like nowhere else.

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 The cat chasing the chicken under the windmill of Mykonos. Cruise ships lying in the harbor. Despite the onrush of tourists the locals kept their heads. - We rented a "Waschküche" a laundry kitchen into which the owner had put to army cots - for a rediculous price. In exchange the landlord, who also ran a small eatery up front, would cook for us on request, any time, day or night.

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 The Chora of Mykonos is actually pretty with many little churches on a flat piece of land near the harbor.

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 Fashionable restaurants line the waterfront.

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The center of the Chora is a confusing tangle of narrow lanes and staircases like this one. A Minoan maze.

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 We found a pebble beach fifteen minutes from our room which we had entirely to ourselves - oh yes, there were two shepherd boys with their dingling flock who spied on us in the heat of noon.....

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 A sheep pen by the sea.

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 The seasoned sailor with a sprig of basil behind the ear who took us to Delos. - The mushroom-head: Yeah, yeah, yeah - long hair was in - it may even have been a boy. let it all hang out...... (1971)

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View south from Mt. Kythnos on Delos. Whilest everybody went to see the ruins of the Apollo Sanctuary, something compelled us to climb the island mountain (160 m). We ended in spending the entire day just sitting up there and in complete silence watched the mandala of islands circle around us 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. - Looking straight down into the transparent sea.

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The northern tip of Delos. To the north is Tinos (left), Mykonos (right), and the channel with uncounted motorboats ferrying people to Delos.

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 The old harbor and part of the hellenistic city of Delos. The larger island on the left is Rhenia, the small one the burial ground, since no one was permitted to die on Delos.

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 Barbara on the way to Ios. (1971)