These Buddhist temples glitter like a fairground mirrors.  Gold everywhere.  They are fun – they’re holy but there’s also jolliness, unlike the basic sadness of Christianity and its churches.  The roofs of the main vihara or preaching hall are orange edged with blackest blue and yellow tiles, and they are not straightforward; they look as if a smaller temple has been built over by a later temple, and then a further temple, all overlapping like a house of cards.  This lets in the breeze but keeps out the rain?  All traditional buildings have this complex format. At the centre of the wat...

Just catch someone’s eye, even a passing motor cyclist, and they smile.  Westerners scowl.    This may be partly the weather, weeks of cold rain freezing faces into disappointment.   We fly from Heathrow.  The relief of getting in the plane and sitting down.  The man in front of me has biceps tattooed with a glaring skull.  The plane bumpily trundles along, trying to get up speed, it’s not going to make it then miraculously it rises and we are off.  By night we are flying over the snowy mountains of Asia, and at a dawn of khaki and rose we are over Burma, with dazzling gold domes and...

22 Still raining, so nice proprietor of Mythos b & b drives us to bus centre to get next bus to Delphi. Long wait, but we have our ipads. Off through the mountains, and a change of buses and a wait at Amfissa. But we arrive! Rain has stopped for a few hours. Bus snakes up from Itea on the Gulf of Corinth to Delphi, and we head straight to the Hermes hotel, where we have stayed before. Room and balcony looking down on the gulf, the mountains, distant Itea and the soft grey green of the largest olive grove in Greece. So welcoming here. 23 B fell over coming back from restaurant in the rain...

We want to get to Meteora, so, trundle along our wheelies and get bus from Verria to Larisa where we are dumped at vast grand bus depot miles out of town. Set upon by taxi driver who wants vast sum to take us to another bus depot – his acolytes who are supposed to sell bus tickets swerve glances away, just nod their heads. Then B sees a local bus, and the driver says yes, he will take us to town centre where we can get bus to Trikala, then Meteora. So B waves and missing my coffee I join him, and we are driven to the town centre. This kind and brilliant bus driver says, don’t go by bus, go by...

11th October   Athens airport, where the first thing is an aquarium of smoke, a thoughtfully placed smoking room where those desperate after the flight can find solace. By metro to Thisio, and find the Jason Inn which I picked because you sit on the roof and glory in the Acropolis, all lit in the darkness (it looks splendid at a distance – close up it is entangled by the girders and cranes of perpetual renovation.  Supper. (12 euros, tourist menu, including wine).   12   Breakfast on the roof, and off to the Acropolis, through our nice cheap touristy area, stalls selling...