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We arrived in Pythagoreio yesterday, a port village built on the ruins of the ancient capital of Samos. Named after the island’s most famous son, Pythagoras. And make a mistake in interpreting a navigational structure on the harbour mole as an Antony Gormley statue in honour of the ancient mathematician. Even knowing I was wrong, I can’t help but still see the linkage. Here’s the structure closer to:

In any event, one high point of the visit to Samos was the Heraion, said to be the birthplace of the goddess Hera. I was fascinated to hear that because the massive shrine was originally built on a wetland, a marsh, liminal land, the buildings kept subsiding. The scale of the ritual slaughter that was practised here back in the day beggars the imagination. I wonder if there were animal liberation activists here back in the sixth century BC.

Afterwards, we visit the museum in the island’s modern capital of Vathi, which contains many fascinating finds from the Heraion site. Among them, a colossal kouros, or male nude figure. Then, the next day, 2 June, we visit the Tunnel of Eupalinos, on a hill overlooking the port. Dug in the sixth century BC, it is an engineering marvel, cut through solid rock for over a kilometre, and designed to be invisible to attackers and besiegers.

When it came to it, though, I chickened out. I put on a safety helmet and started down the rock-cut steps into the tunnel, but my age-old claustrophobia returned with a vengeance – and I decided to sit out this one with some older members of the party. The story of how the tunnel was cut from both ends simultaneously, and how they managed to meet in the middle, was some sort of ancient miracle.

One story that stuck in my mind was the, perhaps deservedly, grisly end of the tyrant Polycrates of Samos. He made the mistake of trusting another tyrant and went to the wonderfully named Magnesia. His fate is thought to have involved some combination of impaling and crucifixion, with one account suggesting that he may have been able to see Samos in the distance as he died. Perhaps wishful thinking on the part of his enemies?

Later in the day we set sail for Leros.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have always haunted my imagination as I worked over the decades on the limits to growth and the looming climate and biodiversity emergencies. But it wasn’t until today that I learned that the famous Pale Horse was actually a Green Horse back in the day.

The identity of my namesake saint, John – the Patmos variety being variously known as the Revelator, the Divine and the Theologian – appears to be the subject of some considerable dispute. What we do seem to know is that the Patmos variant, whoever he may have been, wrote the Book of Revelation – an account of an apocalyptic future. A fuller description of this St John’s Four Horsemen can be found here.

By now we have met our two expert guides, Dr Michael Metcalfe and Nota Karamouna. They prove to be extraordinary, their expertises highly complementary, and their interactions wonderful to behold.

Today we get to know Pothia, capital of the island of Kalymnos, among other things meeting the Lady of Kalymnos in one museum and dipping into the history of sponge diving in another.

One story about The Lady is that she came from Asia Minor rather than the local seabed, which might account for her state of preservation, but that’s a matter for archaeologists and art detectives. Another account is that some fisherfolk know were she was found locally, but are staying mum because there could be more treasure down there on the sea floor.

Later in the day, we set sail for Patmos.

A couple of days ago, on 27 May, we arrived in Bodrum, Turkey, after a nightmarish passage through Gatwick, with immense waiting times, though EasyJet was fine once we were actually aboard. We had decided to take a Peter Sommer expert-led cruise around the Dodecanese Islands in a gulet called the Aegean Clipper.

The trip involved 10 of we travellers and a crew of some 5-6, with the captain understudied by his daughter, one of several of his children now captains, or en route to taking the helm.

The photographs in this series are clustered in 12 postings, from 29 May when we first boarded the Aegean Clipper, to 12 June, when we got back to Bodrum – though that would prove to be quite another adventure.

How wonderful that the judges decided that the best garden of the 2022 Chelsea Flower Show was the Rewilding Britain Garden. Even before I knew it had won the top award, it was the one I picked when asked by a Royal Horticultural Society guide for my favourite stand.

And how wonderful, too, to be invited to the Chelsea Flower Show last night, by the RHS – for their President’s dinner, hosted by Keith Weed, former head of sustainability at Unilever.

This was towards the end of a day that began with a car ride out to the Four Seasons Hotel in Hampshire with Volans colleague Charlene Cranny, to kick off a session on ESG agenda for private equity firm Oakley Capital. Fascinating, broad-ranging exchange. Torrential rain as we returned suggested the Flower Show could be damp at times.

Elaine and I had seen the Gardener’s World programme coverage of the gardens earlier in the week – so it was beyond wonderful to be able to walk into some of our favourites. Among mine was the RAF Benevolent Fund exhibit, though obviously with Battle of Britain pilot father I had something of a vested interest. The extraordinary story behind the sculptor, John Everiss’s, involvement is told on the linked webpage.

Also loved the Bees for Development stand, where we talked about the organisation’s evolution and work with the founder, Dr Nicola Bradbear. Walked off with their 2021 impact report and will follow up. Fascinating to see beekeepers becoming champions of environmental restoration in Africa.

A parallel venture is Honey Care Africa, whose triple bottom line mission attracted me to them when I first encountered their founder, Farouk Jiwa, at the World Economic Forum some twenty years ago.