It is late when we wake –

almost 12 hours of wonderful sleep. Sometime during the night, our bags arrived from Athens.

Greg: What has also arrived in the middle of the night is a case of the flu for me, announced by an incredible case of heartburn that wakes me out of my sleep. We have no luggage and therefore no Tums and no Alka Seltzer to deal with this intense pain in my stomach and throat. I roll onto my back and elevate my head to try and stop the reflux. I think I fall back to sleep for a minute or so when all of a sudden I start to violently cough and quickly realize I’m about to vomit. Fast forward. My stomach is cleared and the pain is gone but I am slightly feverish and realize that my lower back and legs are aching like crazy. I fall back to sleep. In the morning I feel worse than the night before. Head-achy, no energy, lethargic. John heads up to breakfast and I stay in bed until 10. I feel guilty about contemplating spending a beautiful, clear sunny day in Santorini in bed so I get up, pull some clothes on and we wander out into the town.

For a couple of hours, we wander around the town. It is easy to be here. It is early in the season (our hotel opened for the summer only the day before we arrived), and while there are tourists, there aren’t that many.

Greg, who was here 25 years ago, points out to me some of the things that have changed. As we walk around the rim of the caldera, where almost 3,500 years ago most of the island collapsed into the sea in one of the biggest volcanic eruptions of all time, the views change quite remarkably at each corner.

The day is intensely hot in the sun, but the minute you go into shade, it is almost cold. We stop for lunch at a restaurant overlooking the caldera and are glad that our luggage appeared, because we were able to dig out sweaters, and we need them. After lunch, back into the sun, we peel them off and are glad to be in shorts and t-shirts.

It is a day to do nothing, and that is what we do. We spend a quiet afternoon, napping and sitting on our balcony, watching the sea.

Greg: I am in bed at this point, feeling somewhat exhausted from the couple of hours up and down Santorini’s fabled stairs. I did not have much for lunch and am not terribly hungry. I doze with the shuttered window open to the caldera below and the incredible view from our balcony. The sun streams in across the bed and warms the blanket that is loosely covering me. I still feel some guilt about being in a beautiful Greek town and not being able to indulge in its beauty. John heads into Thira village and buys himself some worry beads and to check email. I spend pretty much the rest of the day and early evening this way. The spectacular sunset arrives shortly after 8 pm and I pull on some clothes to indulge in its beauty. We head up the steep, gazillion-million steps to our hotel restaurant and lobby. I am seeking comfort food; some chicken soup or warm broth and a slice of bread will do me just fine. This is not to be. Most of the hotels and restaurants have only opened for business on May 1  and are still primping, painting and cleaning up after the winter. Our restaurant is one of them and has a very limited menu until the season really gets going. I settle for pasta and take maybe ten bites before I call it quits and head back down to the room and bed. I dose up with multivitamins, some aspirin and some effervescing large dose vitamin C and herbal immune travel boosters our friend Larry gave us before we left Los Angeles (thanks, Larry). I try to get some sleep. Tomorrow we are heading for Mykonos.