8 May - Must have slept twelve hours last night, it seems to be a comfortable enough bed and the temps at night good for sleeping but it might just have been that I was as tired as one can get without actually being dead. One thing about stretching your capacities by travelling is that your body learns to appreciate whatever comfort it's got, but I won't expect twelve hours of oblivion every night.

Modified observations on Hora (the more usual name for Naxos town): after my complaints about lack of greenery, I have to acknowledge that there are quite a few things in flower decking various buildings - bougainvillea, oleander in flower. Not a huge number of olive trees but then this is in town, probably there will be more out in the countryside. (There are two little ones in pots, I notice, either side of the entrance of the hotel across the street from my balcony). I think it'll be a good place for what I want to do: walk and find a quiet place and paint. Today though, I'll stay in Hora and "do" the Kastro (the big fortress on the top of the hill in the middle of town), and there are all sorts of museums and things there that I shouldn't miss. There's a Mycenaean burial ground and archaeological site somewhere near the Cathedral. I'll wander and explore.

Considering baggage and the clothes I brought, I made one big mistake, not being able to believe it would be this warm and not packing light enough things. I also wish I'd brought loose shirts instead of fitted tee shirts, more comfortable in the hot sun and a good deal more sensible. One thing I did right, almost by chance, was to throw in at the last minute a navy fleece which is wonderful when it gets chilly but not too heavy to carry when I'm not wearing it.

Later: A morning's wander around the wonderfully picturesque little lanes surrounding the Kastro. I went into the Archaeological Museum, housed in a former school building, paying three euros to get in. I spent ages there, there's a lot of Cycladic stuff which is simple WONDERFUL; I'd always imagined Cycladic to be big statues, sort of Easter Island size (which Cycladic style resembles in a strange way) but here there were the most lovely graceful little votive figures, elegant little heads looking as if they might have been doodled by Henry Moore. Also Mycenaean pots and relics of Roman glass, simply mouthwatering colours, though the age of the glass has something to do with the oil-on-water effects of the colours to some extent. There was a whole clutch of little clay birds from a cemetery dated to the 8th century BC, that looked as if they might have been part of a mobile, little holes in the wings to suspend them. (I couldn't use my camera so I drew what I could from all the things I liked best)

There's a mosaic pavement with peacocks and deer, on an outside terrace , and the view from the Museum roof of the town cascading away below is fabulous.

After a couple of hours there, I wandered on and stumbled on the Venetian Museum which is housed in the mansion still lived in by one of the main Venetian families of the Island, the Della Rocca-Barozzo family. Large parts of the house are open to the public (for a fee of course) - the main sitting room with lofty views of the harbour and town from all the windows, with the furnishings looking as if they hadn't been touched since the nineteenth century.

I found it a bit melancholy, though full of interesting things - all the family things of the Della Rocca-Barozzo family, old photographs of young couples and then more contemporary ones of the same young people grown old, faded documents, old books, quite a few rocking chairs with cane backs (more comfortable than upholstered in a hot climate). There was also, displayed on the wall of one of the hallways, a whole set of Karaghiosis figures, colourful flat board figures of the characters of the Greek version of Punch and Judy. The little man at the door who took the tickets was a bit surprised that I recognised them and taught me a little poem from the one of the Karaghiosis stories that translates roughly "We eat, we drink, but we go to bed with empty stomachs"...!!??!! In the bedroom, with several four-poster iron bedsteads with lacy bedcovers, there were old garments laid out on the beds, delicate silk jackets and gowns, and one small dress, white cotton embroidered all over, and next to it an old photograph of a child wearing the same dress, a little dark girl smiling gently at the camera. One couldn't help thinking of how, if she is even still alive, she must be a very old woman by now.

The cellar was the most mournful; full of cast-off furniture, pithoi (big wine jars), folding chairs - they have concerts there every week, and you are invited to taste samples of the island speciality, Kitron, a strong liqueur, from a table in one of the lower rooms. The whole place just rang with echoes of better days. Even those clothes laid out on the beds, tiny for modern people, seemed only partly in the real world, all wrapped in memory. I went out by the Great Gate of the Kastro - the Della Rocca house is built-into the walls of the Kastro itself - but though impressive (the walls are six metres thick at the base) I felt not particularly thrilled; all that clenched, stubborn need for total control, power, all turned to dust and old photographs and broken relics in a basement.

I hadn't expected the Kastro to be such a warren but of course it's about as picturesque as you could like. Now I'm in a cafe having a Greek coffee and watching the world. I haven't yet touched my paintbox, but want to get a feel of things a bit more first - get out into the countryside. Cycladic architecture in the town seems to be inclined toward the Lego effect...

4pm after a nap - I wouldn't choose to stay in this part of town again - the narrow streets funnel the sounds, this afternoon of Greek landladies energetically cleaning at the tops of their voices, as Greeks will. I've come out onto my balcony to find that the next-door balcony (divided from mine only by a narrow iron railing) now has table and chairs on it, prefiguring New Guests To Come. Alas I'll have to work out a way to hide behind my shutters when I'm out here. It's been overcast with high thin cloud since mid-morning, occasionally the sun peeps through but mostly it's a bit close and sleepy, not all blue and clear like it was yesterday. But I expect it has to rain sometime. I'm about to walk out to Grotta beach (on the other side of Hora) to look for the Cycladic remains of buildings under the sea, then perhaps up to the Ayiou Ioannou Khrysostomou nunnery above town, for the view. Might even take my paints, though it's not much of a day for clear Greek light and I'm feeling very sleepy cos the cleaning ladies' shouting woke me up before I finished my nap.

Later - Walked to Grotta beach but wasn't impressed, so unimpressed that I even forgot to look for the Cycladic remains, then retraced my steps to the right street to lead me to the climb to the monastery (I know, it's a nunnery but everyone calls it 'the Monastery') I was pretty sure I was right, but I saw a young woman coming out of a building along the way so I pointed and said "Khrysostomou?" She smiled and said in excellent English "The Monastery? You walk along here, until you have to decide, then go left." I said I was going to walk it, and she said "It's too high up. I go in my car," and offered me a lift, but I said that to 'get the medal' I needed to do it myself, and she saw the joke. So she drove off and I kept on. It was a good sweaty climb but no problem, once out of the town it was pretty obvious which road to take. I passed a quartet of older Greek people on the steps of the "Theologos", a tiny chapel sort of built-into a cave on the same road, and just kept going till I got to the Monastery, stopping from time to time just to look at the widening view and catch my breath.

The light was still diffuse from the high cloud but that was beginning to break up as the sun began to go down, and from up there the whole sea looked like hammered silver. Of course the view was superb, and I'd had the presence of mind to bring my binoculars, so I could examine Hora in detail and plan where I'd explore tomorrow.

Must find the Mitropoleos (Orthodox Cathedral) so as to locate the museum of the Mycenaean cemetery finds. Also perhaps the folk museum. Lots of places in town will be closed on Monday, day after tomorrow, so I'll do my first long countryside walk then. After I'd soaked up as much as I could of the view from the Monastery (it's closed to visitors) I stopped on the way back to explore the little Theologos chapel, up a steep flight of stone steps and so small inside it was almost like a cupboard. The usual tin icons and wildly colourful pictures, and the usual little table with an oil lamp burning and odd little votives.

Two blisters on one foot and a huge blister on the bottom of the other - plus the aches from too much standing/walking. I'm paying the price of too many high heels in my youth. And now three mosquito bites as well - it's not too early here for mosquitoes...

On the way home from my climb I passed a shop I'd seen earlier and this time I went in - it was a paradise, all the old-fashioned things, big chunks of olive oil soap, baskets, little brushes, herbs in big open sacks, saffron, brightly coloured pottery casseroles and tubs, bottles and bottles of local wine and spirits, lots more. I bought some things for presents, also a bag of basil ("for depression" it said on the hand-lettered sign stuck in the big sack), a box of saffron, and a postcard of old Naxos (1965) of an old bus with a man sitting on top of it, because it reminded me of the opening of Lawrence Durrell's book about Cyprus, Bitter Lemons where he comes upon a bus with a man sitting on top of it, apparently trying to saw it in half. The little man behind the counter - who was taciturn, to put it politely, tried to shortchange me 10 cents but was amiable enough when I pointed it out, and posed without complaint for his picture. I met a couple of Americans there and we agreed it was the best shop in the whole of Hora and I bewailed having to carry everything as I was going home overland. She was buying piles of ceramic casseroles and bottles of wine and I pitied her husband who would probably have to do most of the carrying on their way home.

This morning when I walked into town I went by the seaside route, which is not at all built-up but a paved way that seems to be mostly pedestrian, though now and then a car whizzes past. There’s a tiny church along the way and one big building that I think is some kind of meteorological station, but mostly the scenery is just rough ground and wildflowers. I watched a diver in the calm morning sea (a bird diver, not a human one) and photographed some flowers that looked like viper’s bugloss but were a really bright pink. Picked up a shard of marble from the heaps lying-about, some in huge blocks, as sea-defences along the shore.

9 May - I really miss having a view from my balcony; I've never been to Greece without one before - fabulous panoramas of Gaios harbour on Paxos, Vathy harbour on Ithaca, or Kalami Bay or Paleokastritsa from the heights, on Corfu. Here all I see is a tiny snip of sea from one corner of the balcony and mostly the front of the hotel across the street. From the other corner of the balcony I get a geometric arrangement of buildings up the street with a distant glimpse of blue hills. Must try to do some painting today. I should try having a swim soon, too. But so much has been packed into my first day and a half that it's hard to remember that I've still got a week and two days before I go back to Athens. The weather's still a little hazy with a cool breeze. People are wearing long shorts, tee shirts. I've put on my linen bags and black vest and, because the balcony's still in shade at this hour of the day, my fleece. Am I glad I brought it!

11.15 - Went into town and looked in the shop called 'Zoom' for the guidebook that features various Naxos walks but it wasn't obvious in the limited English selection so I wandered out again and found my way to the Mitropoleos Cathedral and the exhibition nearby of Mycenaean tumulus and ruins...Well, what a mix, from Cycladic all the way to Roman. Very well displayed and wonderfully well-explained (I even took pictures of the boards with the explanations) and I spent nearly an hour just looking. I had to look extra hard since the lady at the desk (who was on the phone to a chum for most of the time) didn't seem to feel it necessary to turn on any of the lights so some of the detail was hard to see. You walk around over the site on walkways, and when anything of particular interest happens to be underneath the walkway itself (like the remains of a potter's workbench with some of the pots in little hollows where they were left to dry), the walkway has a big reinforced glass window. It's a strange feeling to come upon one of these - and there are several all about the site - and obviously other people have found it uncomfortable too because every one of them has a polite little sign saying "It is safe to walk on the glass".

After I left there I wandered about in the winding lanes around the Kastro until I found the back walls, that I could see last night with my binoculars from the Monastery - there are so many photo opportunities in the Bourgos (the Old Town). As I wandered about amongst the flowery alleys and winding ways, up and down, I was reflecting that in fact, judging from the size of an everyday room in most Mycenaean ruins, a Mycenaean village might have been very like a place like the Bourgos, all the little dwellings packed-together cheek-by-jowl and higgledy-piggledy as they would fit in to the space they had. Then a funny little man in a brown suit and too-big shoes and a grey crewcut went past me, nodding as he passed, and I watched him climb the steps in front of me, thinking that in ancient times there must have been two distinct classes simply due to nutrition differences - the workers would have been like this little man, slightly irregular, humble, maybe a bit simple, kept-down, while the Ruling Class, better fed, would have been bigger, stronger, more confident. Twas ever thus (though I know I am making insanely sweeping generalisations here) and the Rich always feel they have good reasons for grinding the faces of the Poor I guess. Anyway I then said good morning to a little neatly-dressed man with smartly-cut grey hair and a blue shirt, who started a conversation with me, all properly polite and respectful. He asked if it was my first visit to Naxos, where I was from, all the usual Greek questions. He told me that 200 years ago Naxos had a population of 200,000 people (hard to believe, where did they all live?) Then he said that archaeologists were always excavating their dwellings so perhaps he meant two thousand years ago. It would make more sense, since at that time Naxos was a real hub, being smack in the middle of the Aegean sea routes. He told me the population now is 20,000 - mostly Greek, though there are foreign residents (he pointed to a nearby house and said it was owned by an American family). He said he’d been a merchant sailor and had been all over the world (“naftikos” [sailor in Greek] I said, and he smiled) and he now had a fishing boat here on Naxos. Said in years past that Naxian marble used to be shipped in quantity to the US, “big ships, direct from Naxos to America”. (I bet some of it went to build some of the big buildings in Washington DC that I know so well from my childhood). He offered me a coffee but I said I had to get on. He said next time come to Naxos to stay more than ten days.

Then I wandered back towards ‘my’ end of town and as I was using the water’s-edge walk decided to have a look at Agios Georgios beach (the town’s nearest and main beach). It’s wonderful sand - not my usual experience of Greek beaches, which are often just shingle. The arm of the beach reaches right out around the left-hand side of the bay - it looks quite deserted at the far end as most of the people hang around the beachside cafes in the centre part, and would probably do nicely for a day’s lazing, but for now I’ve found a nice perch on some rocks that run out along the opposite side of the bay, below a deserted cafe on the headland. Couldn’t swim too easily from here but no one will bother me.

...As soon as I wrote that two boys came crashing past on the path, realised that it goes no further and have now perched a little way back on some other rocks. I’m perfectly content here in the sun, and have been watching a little lizard slowly creep out of his hiding place to explore my left toe, he came right up and it looked as if he was kissing it, but as soon as I moved inadvertently he was off. I should have brought my paints, but it’s rather breezy to be struggling with loose papers.

3.30 - Well, here I am after all on the wonderful Sandy Beach and all I can say is give me rocks every time. The wind’s just strong enough, even in the sheltered nook I’ve found among the dunes, to blow sand everywhere, and I’m all sticky with it and with the suncream I wouldn’t dare to be without. Feel quite sensitive about Being Old this afternoon, having had to run the gauntlet of the crowds of teenagers around the beach bars and cafes on the way out to this part of the beach. But I’m better now and can count blessings too - after all, I’m in Greece and can please myself - in two days I’ve covered a fair bit of ‘cultural’ ground and as much real ground as my feet can stand. I’m getting a feel for the kind of paintings I want to do. And when I reflect, I know I’m in a whole lot better shape than I might be. Getting red - time to go in .