17th-22nd September 2019 Greece - Athens, Chios, Thermoplylae

The illuminated Athenian acropolis as seen from the dining room of GB Roof Garden. The darkening colours of the evening sky, mingling with the harsher glare of the floodlights, create each night a unique palette of shifting light and shadows. In the background the bar staff shake cocktails and effortlessly orchestrate the visitors who gawp and gape at the golden majesty of the Parthenon.

Xysta=patterned house fronts at Pyrgi, a mastic village on Chios; the resin which brought both wealth and so much suffering, massacres and bloodshed.

An 11th century survival at Nea Moni, Chios, the island which internationalised the cause of Greek independence in the 1820s. This monkish dining table recalls its Byzantine heritage as it was at the site of Nea Moni that the fate of the future emperor Constantine IX Monomachos was foretold and where his gratitude was repaid..

The monument to Leonidas. Thermopylae. The Hot Gates. Where the 300 fell but claimed immortality. 'Go tell the Spartans, passer-by, That here, by Spartan law, we lie'........