This morning we started bright and early by visiting the centre of the Cycladic world, the island of Delos, an entire island of ruins where no one else but the archaeologists and guards live. In mythology Delos is the birthplace of the two glorious, eternally young twins, Apollo, the god of light and civilization, and Artemis, the goddess of hunting. Only this ‘fact’ was enough to make it the centre of an imaginary circle (cyclos) of islands, a group of islands in the south of the Aegean Seastill called Cyclades. We found this isolated wind-blown island empty and all to ourselves (until the large noisy crowds arrived later from the party island of Mykonos) and enjoyed a nice travel in time. We visited the sanctuary and went 28 centuries back, when this became the place where the Greek Ionian islanders worshiped the divine twins. We saw their temples, the remains of a vast marble ancient statue of youthful naked Apollo (only the base weights 32 tons!), the Lions’ Terrace and the Sacred Hoop-Lagoon where the twins were born. We also visited the ancient theatre and a few of the luxurious houses with inside lavish courtyards laid withmosaics, in a city of parvenu merchants, ship owners and seafarers of thirty thousand people that developed around the sanctuary back in the 2nd century B.C.! As we walked up the ancient streets with their extensive sewage system, some actually said that it felt as if they were walking in Pompeii (minus the frescoes), only this was two centuries earlier! Quiet a few of our adventurous members made it up to the steep hill with the temple of Isis and Mt. Kynthos and enjoyed a glorious birds-eye view of the entire region!
During the warm afternoon we took refuge in the Sea Cloud, enjoying yet another delicious lunch, a siesta and a lecture by the National Geographic photographer Michael Melford as we set the sails up and let the Sea Cloud run the waves of the Aegean. By early evening we had reached our next destination, the westernmost island of the Cyclades called Amorgos, where many of our travelers seized the opportunity to go ashore and enjoy the island night life!
