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Our Cadogan guide says that Portocheli (Porto Heli) “ has as much personality as a doorknob ”. Now, I’ve seen some interesting doorknobs on our travels, but I’m not sure that that was meant as a compliment. By contrast the same guide says that Nafplio is “ a rarity in the Peloponnese: a beautiful city ”. It was difficult to disagree with that summary. We only ever took the Setsail flotilla into Port Heli (PH) once, and that was simply to avoid some high winds that were foreca

For those who are too young to remember it, this is how Gladys Pugh (played by Ruth Madoc) used to introduce her broadcasts in the BBC sitcom ‘Hi-de-Hi’, set in the 1950s holiday camp of Maplins. Well, Skipper may frown upon me saying this, but sometimes boating is like having a caravan on water. You pack up every day, stow things away, and move on to the next place. Then, you unpack what you need, spend the afternoon, and certainly the evening doing stuff around the location

(or ’ Did we beat the other buggers here? ’) With Cape Maleas behind us, we could now drift up the coastline to Monemvasia. R has mentioned previously that Monemvasia is sometimes called the ‘Gibraltar of the East’, but I think that is rather unfair to Monemvasia (apologies to any Gib-lovers out there). The only similarity is that they are both large rocks connected to the mainland by a short causeway. [ Ed – and Monemvasia’s isthmus doesn’t include an airport! ] R and I had

Monemvasia (Malvasia to the Venetians) The memory that has remained most vivid from our 2004 post-flotilla road trip with Suzie and Bente is the cloud of pink covering the top of The Rock. On closer inspection, this violet carpet turned out to be thousands of large-petalled cyclamens. Each of them clinging onto the limestone with barely any discernible top soil for roots or sustenance. It was the end of October, and after that long summer when most Greek vegetation had seemin

or 'Third time lucky' The Three Fingers (C) Rod Heikell Thanks to the landslide which has closed the Corinth Canal, we have to round the three fingers at the bottom of the Peloponnese, and it’s taken us three different attempts. Our first got us as far as Koroni, which is at the end of the first, westernmost finger. We anchored, already knowing we weren’t going to try to get further east as the forecast was blowing up again. Our friends Judith and Al on ‘Money Penny’ had atte