Wednesday 15^th August, 2018 1500

Despite my plan to retire at around midnight last night and sleep until eight then go for a leisurely breakfast at nine, someone in our party decided they needed their bed at 2130! On holiday! It's not as if we had anything to get up early for, there's been enough of that as it is. Eventually I tired of sitting at the laptop and just after 2300 capitulated. I was awake at seven.

It was not long after sunrise and the sun shone golden across the bay, already the day was warm. In fact, now it is a decidedly balmy 37C which, after two years of de-climatising in Lanzhou, saw my forehead break into a sweat after a bit of walking.

If I was a breakfast person I could easily have had a sumptuous couple of plates but I am not, they didn't have pork breakfast sausages and worse, we're in Greece for God's sake, no Greek yoghurt! Not that I was particularly hungry but I could have managed a litre of that.

They did however have a tame taxi firm which quoted fixed prices to their customers. Having been warned Piraeus was 40-50 minutes drive and at my age and mobility at present (I saw bugger all of Paris!), with a normal commuter bus being out of the question I leapt at the quoted price of €57. I do believe we have found our Greek driver for our return from Syros to the Acropolis Select hotel and the airport run at the end.

We are staying at Piraeus Port hotel for one night only (probably 99% of the customers are thus, simply in preparation for a ferry to the cyclades). The room is very nice indeed, if a trifle on the small side. No smoking but there's a balcony and if we buy breakfast in the morning they will run us to the ferry! It's a ten minute walk but lugging 20kg of suitcase (even on wheels), a laptop bag and a shoulder bag? At 0630? I'd rather pay for a breakfast and not eat than do that. Apparently (so the receptionist thinks) they do have pork bangers for their English breakfast, in which case I may become a breakfast person, even if it is just to take a bread roll with sausages away with me!

I didn't fancy battling possible early morning queues to obtain our boarding passes – the ferry sails at 0730 and they ask you to be there waiting to board by seven – so after checking in we toddled off armed with the helpful map and directions from the receptionist. I think we went into five Blue Star Ferries offices before we found the right place! And that of course was the very last building in the port. I should have guessed.

By that time we were both thirsty so went in search of a snack for Alice and a cold one for me. Found a corner cafe selling both and she had a rather tasteless cheese puff/pasty which she wasn't keen on (probably because you could neither like nor dislike it due to its blandness) and I forced down two beers. I could have stayed for more because it was the cheapest place I had found since leaving China! At last the moneydrain may ease up a little. It's not as if we are dining on lobster and caviar every night, in fact considering I am visiting some of the best places in the world for food I am eating woefully small amounts.

Anyway, the shops were on their three hour siesta so any thought of buying socks and boxers evaporated. Later after Madam has napped yes and before we go for dinner or, more accurately she goes for dinner and I get a drink.

1815

It wasn't a siesta. Only I could schedule a one-day visit to Piraeus for my first time here for the celebration of the death of the Virgin Mary, one of the three biggest holidays in the Greek calendar. Shops, restaurants – everything is closed. So it is to be a quiet night in the hotel, thankfully they do a meal deal with a choice of three menus for two for 24 euros and surprisingly the hotel bar is very reasonably priced. What the hell, plenty of excitement tomorrow and hopefully I can buy my socks and boxers on Syros. And I need to find somewhere that will do laundry – urgently!